Lieberman et al 2003: in physical anthropology, racialism has been dying since the 1900s: of race articles in 1920's 70% supported racialism; in 1990 just 15% did: https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/ar/article/view/12197> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/954464882001072148/Lieberman2003.pdf
Rinderman Surveys and Their Flaws (Small Sample, Likely Strongly Biased Toward Scientific Racists)
Jackson and Winston 2020: the Rindermann-Becker-Coyle surveys achieved a 5% response rate, with just ~70 respondents per paper, despite asking 1345 people; this suggests *against* the mainstream status of scientific racism
Jackson and Winston 2020: the Rindermann-Becker-Coyle surveys achieved a 5% response rate, with just ~70 respondents per paper, despite asking 1345 people; this suggests *against* the mainstream status of scientific racism: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1089268020953622 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1089268020953622 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1015708936298577981/jackson2020.pdf
Rindermann Becker Coyle 2016: among 71 respondents (of 1345 asked, 5.2% rate, w/ strong lean toward scientific racists) recruited from people who'd published in Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, and other intelligence-related journals, on a scale from 100 (explains all variation in intelligence) to 0 (explains none), respondents on average reported "culture" at 14, "genes" at 20, "education quantity" at 14, "education quality" at 15
Rindermann Becker Coyle 2016: among 71 respondents (of 1345 asked, 5.2% rate, w/ strong lean toward scientific racists) recruited from people who'd published in Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, and other intelligence-related journals, on a scale from 100 (explains all variation in intelligence) to 0 (explains none), respondents on average reported "culture" at 14, "genes" at 20, "education quantity" at 14, "education quality" at 15: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00399/full http://sci-hub.se/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00399 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1015701935938097232/rindermann2016.pdf
Rindermann Becker Coyle 2017: among ~60 respondents (of 1345 asked, 4.4% rate, w/ strong lean toward scientific racists) recruited from people who'd published in Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, and other intelligence-related journals, respondents thought that Europe and its colonies would see little IQ gains while East Asia, India, and Africa would each see about 7 points of IQ gains
Rindermann Becker Coyle 2017: among ~60 respondents (of 1345 asked, 4.4% rate, w/ strong lean toward scientific racists) recruited from people who'd published in Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, and other intelligence-related journals, respondents thought that Europe and its colonies would see little IQ gains while East Asia, India, and Africa would each see about 7 points of IQ gains: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886916310984 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.061 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1015714742297436330/rindermann2017.pdf
Rindermann Becker Coyle 2020: among fewer than 70 respondents (of 1345 asked, N not reported, w/ strong lean toward scientific racists) recruited from people who'd published in Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, and other intelligence-related journals, respondents thought most respondents put the "ratings of the environmental vs. genetic determinants of the US Black-White difference in IQ" near the "middle", meaning near-equally environmental and genetic
Rindermann Becker Coyle 2020: among fewer than 70 respondents (of 1345 asked, N not reported, w/ strong lean toward scientific racists) recruited from people who'd published in Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, and other intelligence-related journals, respondents thought most respondents put the "ratings of the environmental vs. genetic determinants of the US Black-White difference in IQ" near the "middle", meaning near-equally environmental and genetic: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289619301886 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.intell.2019.101406 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.intell.2019.101406
Gottfredson's "Mainstream Statement on Intelligence": Hand-Picked Hereditarians, Still Could Only Get 52 Signatories
Gottfredson 1994: of 131 handpicked pro-hereditarian experts asked to endorse the statement, 100 responded; of those, 48 refused to sign, and just 4 of those claimed "possible political repercussions to them of signing it (such as loss of funding or other support)"
^ APA president Donald Campbell: just 10 of 52 signatories were actually experts in intelligence measurement
^ APA president Donald Campbell: just 10 of 52 signatories were actually experts in intelligence measurement: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F1040-3590.8.4.363 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-02157-006 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/1040-3590.8.4.363 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1015710573348016239/campbell1996.pdf
In response to the controversy that arose over publication of this book, Linda Gottfredson (University of Delaware) published a 25-point summary of research findings supporting Herrnstein and Murray's position, and this was published with the list of endorsers in an article opposite to the editorial page in The Wall Street Journal ("Mainstream Science," 1994). Of the 52 signatories, there were 10 whom I would regard as measurement experts. I do not have a list of those who were asked to sign and refused, but I know they included Lee Cronbach. Robert Sternberg, and myself. Although not directly referring to the Wall Street Journal piece, the APA Task Force report Intelligence: Knowm and Unknowns (Neisser et al., 1996) is relevant, but because I regard it as too noncommittal and inadequate in presenting the environmentalist explanation for race differences, it does not remove the need for the arguments that follow.
^ SPLC 2020: of the signers -- including Gottfredson -- were recipients of funding from the Pioneer Fund, a white-supremacist organization
^ SPLC 2020: of the signers -- including Gottfredson -- were recipients of funding from the Pioneer Fund, a white-supremacist organization: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/linda-gottfredson https://archive.ph/uoLyZ
Snyderman and Rothman Surveys: Large Sample, High Response Rate, Probably Fairly Representative
Snyderman and Rothman 1987: among 661 respondents (of 1020 asked, 64.8% response rate) recruited from major psychological/sociological/genetic associations, on the black-white different in IQ, 45% believe it to be genetic & environmental, 15% believe it to be entirely environmental, and 1% believe it to be entirely genetic (adjusted: 73.8%, 24.6%, 1.6%)
Snyderman and Rothman 1987: among 661 respondents (of 1020 asked, 64.8% response rate) recruited from major psychological/sociological/genetic associations, on the black-white different in IQ, 45% believe it to be genetic & environmental, 15% believe it to be entirely environmental, and 1% believe it to be entirely genetic (adjusted: 73.8%, 24.6%, 1.6%): https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0003-066X.42.2.137 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/0003-066X.42.2.137 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1015701805235179610/snyderman1987.pdf
This is perhaps the central question in the IQ controversy. Respondents were asked to express their opinion of the role of genetic differences in the black-white IQ differential. Forty-five percent believe the difference to be a product of both genetic and environmental variation, compared to only 15% who feel the difference is entirely due to environmental variation. Twenty-four percent of experts do not believe there are sufficient data to support any reasonable opinion, and 14% did not respond to the question. Eight experts (1%) indicate a belief in an entirely genetic determination. The source of socioeconomic class differences in IQ. The case for genetic determination is even more strongly felt for socioeconomic status (SES) differences. Fifty-five percent of experts choose the genetic--environmental option, as opposed to 12% for strictly environmental. Eighteen percent do not feel there are sufficient data, and 15% were nonrespondents. Only one respondent attributes the difference entirely to genetics.
^ related book: Snyderman and Rothman 1988
Extent of Racialist Views Among Americans
Morning Brueckner Nelson 2019: when asked agreement for "genetic differences contribute to income inequality between Black and White people", 20% of white people agreed
Tucker-Drobb and Bates 2016
A core hypothesis in developmental theory predicts that genetic influences on intelligence and academic achievement are suppressed under conditions of socioeconomic privation and more fully realized under conditions of socioeconomic advantage: a Gene Childhood Socioeconomic Status (SES) interaction. Tests of this hypothesis have produced apparently inconsistent results. We performed a meta-analysis of tests of Gene SES interaction on intelligence and academic-achievement test scores, allowing for stratification by nation (United States vs. non United States), and we conducted rigorous tests for publication bias and between-studies heterogeneity. In U.S. studies, we found clear support for moderately sized Gene SES effects. In studies from Western Europe and Australia, where social policies ensure more uniform access to high-quality education and health care, Gene SES effects were zero or reversed.
A core hypothesis in developmental theory predicts that genetic influences on intelligence and academic achievement are suppressed under conditions of socioeconomic privation and more fully realized under conditions of socioeconomic advantage: a Gene Childhood Socioeconomic Status (SES) interaction. Tests of this hypothesis have produced apparently inconsistent results. We performed a meta-analysis of tests of Gene SES interaction on intelligence and academic-achievement test scores, allowing for stratification by nation (United States vs. non United States), and we conducted rigorous tests for publication bias and between-studies heterogeneity. In U.S. studies, we found clear support for moderately sized Gene SES effects. In studies from Western Europe and Australia, where social policies ensure more uniform access to high-quality education and health care, Gene SES effects were zero or reversed.
Rosenberg et al 2018
Education Emphasizing the Real but Small Genetic Variation Among Human Groups Can Decrease Racist Views
Hubbard 2017: non-experimental trial: among 296 undergraduates, learning about the lack of genetic basis for race significantly and substantially increased correct non-essentialist beliefs about race (by 13-38% on four questions)
Donovan et al 2019: RCT: in three samples (8-9th graders, 9-12th graders, adults), learning about genetic variation within and between racial groups causally decreases prejudice toward other racial groups
Education Emphasizing Racial Differences in Disease Risk Can Increase Racist Views
Donovan 2017: non-experimental trial: among 153 students at two California high schools, those who learned about different disease risk between racial groups ("Caucasian", "African American", "Ashkenazi") believed that more genetic variation occurred between races and were more likely to support genetic essentialist racist views than those that learned about different disease risk without mentioning race
Donovan 2017: non-experimental trial: among 153 students at two California high schools, those who learned about different disease risk between racial groups ("Caucasian", "African American", "Ashkenazi") believed that more genetic variation occurred between races and were more likely to support genetic essentialist racist views than those that learned about different disease risk without mentioning race: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tea.21370 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/tea.21370 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1013253195780345916/donovan2016.pdf
Donovan 2016: among 86 ninth-graders, reading a race-based description of sickle-cell anemia increased genetically-based racism scores, while reading a population-based description did not
Donovan 2016: among 86 ninth-graders, reading a race-based description of sickle-cell anemia increased genetically-based racism scores, while reading a population-based description did not: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.21221 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/sce.21221 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1013255375589474415/donovan2016.pdf
Reducing Belief in Racial Essentialism: Genetics Education
Harmon 2019
Donovan 2021
. Specifically, one needs to understand that the causes of within-group variation in a trait can be different from the causes of between-group variation in that same trait. That is, even when trait differences between individuals within a population are entirely inherited, differences between populations can still be caused entirely by environmental factors (Feldman & Lewontin, 1975).
. Specifically, one needs to understand that the causes of within-group variation in a trait can be different from the causes of between-group variation in that same trait. That is, even when trait differences between individuals within a population are entirely inherited, differences between populations can still be caused entirely by environmental factors (Feldman & Lewontin, 1975).
The combined contribution of all of these genomic variants to any group level difference in a complex human trait is predicted to be small, possibly spurious, and largely dependent on the environment according to population genetic theory (Rosenberg et al., 2018).
The combined contribution of all of these genomic variants to any group level difference in a complex human trait is predicted to be small, possibly spurious, and largely dependent on the environment according to population genetic theory (Rosenberg et al., 2018). https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/26/5262222
Empirically, we also know that intergenerational scores on IQ tests have changed over time because of improvements in the human environment
Empirically, we also know that intergenerational scores on IQ tests have changed over time because of improvements in the human environment https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1718793115
To claim that racial disparities in education are caused by genetic differences between races on the basis of heritability statistics that are derived within populations, as Jensen (1969) did, is at best a conceptual error (Feldman & Lewontin, 1975), and at worst, an ideological distortion of scientific knowledge (Donovan, 2015a; Graves, 2015; Lewontin, 1996) that is not supported by contemporary population genetic theory on polygenic trait variation
To claim that racial disparities in education are caused by genetic differences between races on the basis of heritability statistics that are derived within populations, as Jensen (1969) did, is at best a conceptual error (Feldman & Lewontin, 1975), and at worst, an ideological distortion of scientific knowledge (Donovan, 2015a; Graves, 2015; Lewontin, 1996) that is not supported by contemporary population genetic theory on polygenic trait variation https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/26/5262222
Predictions: What Should We See if Divergent Selection Drove Racial Differences?
Edge and Rosenberg 2015: if inter-group differences in a given biological function are driven by genetic drift (no selection), we should expect inter-group differences to be near the average for neutral traits (ie, near FST); if driven by divergent selection, larger than average; if by convergent selection, lower than average
Edge and Rosenberg 2015: if inter-group differences in a given biological function are driven by genetic drift (no selection), we should expect inter-group differences to be near the average for neutral traits (ie, near FST); if driven by divergent selection, larger than average; if by convergent selection, lower than average: https://bioone.org/journals/Human-Biology/volume-87/issue-4/humanbiology.87.4.0313/A-General-Model-of-the-Relationship-between-the-Apportionment-of/10.13110/humanbiology.87.4.0313.short https://sci-hub.se/10.13110/humanbiology.87.4.0313
In agreement with similar efforts using different models, we show that the expected degree to which two groups differ on a neutral quantitative trait is not strongly affected by the number of genetic loci that influence the trait: neutral trait differences are expected to have a magnitude comparable to the genetic differences at a single neutral locus.
Variation: Mostly by Distance
Handley 2007: human variation is highly clinal (it fits isolation by distance, IBD) rather than racial; geographic distance along landmasses explains 76% of genetic distance between individuals
Handley 2007: human variation is highly clinal (it fits isolation by distance, IBD) rather than racial; geographic distance along landmasses explains 76% of genetic distance between individuals: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168952507002326 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.tig.2007.07.002
^ data source for above graph: Linz et al 2007
human variation is highly clinal (it fits isolation by distance, IBD) rather than racial
human variation is highly clinal (it fits isolation by distance, IBD) rather than racial: https://genome.cshlp.org/content/14/9/1679.full In the light of these results, and in agreement with extensive studies of classical genetic markers (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994), it seems that gradual variation and isolation by distance rather than major genetic discontinuities is typical of global human genetic diversity. Obviously, this does not imply that genetic discontinuities do not exist on a more local scale, for example, between people from different linguistic groups (e.g., Barbujani and Sokal 1990; Sokal et al. 1990). It also does not mean that no differences whatsoever exist between continental groups. In fact, what Rosenberg et al. (2002) have shown is that given enough markers and the extraordinary power of Structure, the tiny amounts of genetic differences that exist between continents can also be discerned. However, this should not obscure the fact that on a worldwide scale, clines are a better representation of the human diversity than clades, and that continents do not represent more substantial discontinuities in such clines than many other geographical and cultural barriers.
Graphic Representation of Clinal Variation
Cavalli-Sforza 1996: map of Biasutti 1959's table of human skin colors of indigenous populations
Cavalli-Sforza 1996: map of Biasutti 1959's table of human skin colors of indigenous populations: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1035607999 https://u1lib.org/book/3515226/5b0756
Example of Clinal Variation: Lactose Persistence
Ingram et al 2022: variation of lactase persistence predicted by prevalence of five known lactase persistence genes
Itan 2010: variation of lactase persistence predicted by prevalence of four known lactase persistence genes
Example of Clinal Variation: Sickle Cell Anemia
Gomez, Hirbo, and Tishkoff 2014: sickle cell anemia alleles closely follows malaria prevalence
Variation: Mostly Shared
Li 2008: the vast majority (90%) of human genetic variation occurs within, not between, populations
Li 2008: the vast majority (90%) of human genetic variation occurs within, not between, populations: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/319/5866/1100.full We carried out an analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) (18, 19) to partition overall genetic variation into three components: within-population (WP), among-population-within-group (i.e., geographical region) (AP/WG), and among geographical region (AG). **The 51 populations are assigned to the seven geographical regions shown in Fig. 1A. The results are similar among autosomal chromosomes: the WP, AP/WG, and AG components explain 88.9 0.3%, 2.1 0.05%, and 9.0 0.3% (mean SD across 22 chromosomes) of the variance, respectively (Fig. 3A).**
Rosenberg 2003
Rosenberg 2003: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/298/5602/2381.full https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.1078311 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/728597367145627669/rosenberg2003.pdf
The average proportion of genetic differences between individuals from different human populations only slightly exceeds that between unrelated individuals from a single population. That is, the within-population component of genetic variation, estimated here as 93 to 95% (Table 1), accounts for most of human genetic diversity.
Variation: Most SNP Alleles Are Present in Most Populations (But Not All Are!)
the vast majority (86%) of SNPs in the average human's genome are common among all humans population groups ("cosmopolitan"): 84.7 million SNPs, 3.6 million short indels, 60k structural variants (>99% of SNPs with frequency >1%)
the vast majority (86%) of SNPs in the average human's genome are common among all humans population groups ("cosmopolitan"): 84.7 million SNPs, 3.6 million short indels, 60k structural variants (>99% of SNPs with frequency >1%): https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15393 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/nature15393
Although most common variants are shared across the world, rarer variants are typically restricted to closely related populations (Fig. 1a); 86% of variants were restricted to a single continental group.
The majority of variants in the data set are rare: ~64 million autosomal variants have a frequency <0.5%, ~12 million have a frequency between 0.5% and 5%, and only ~8 million have a frequency >5% (Extended Data Fig. 3a). Nevertheless, the majority of variants observed in a single genome are common: just 40,000 to 200,000 of the variants in a typical genome (1 4%) have a frequency <0.5% (Fig. 1c and Extended Data Fig. 3b).
this is unsurprising, as >80% of human SNP alleles are cosmopolitan
Variation: FST
2010 review: humans have a low F_st value
2010 review: humans have a low F_st value: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168952510000788 More recent work suggests that the human species FST could actually be lower, between 0.05 and 0.13 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 for autosomal SNPs (Table 1), in other words between one-third and one-half of that observed in gorilla (Gorilla gorilla; FST = 0.38 [28]) and between Western and Eastern chimpanzee (FST = 0.32 [15]) despite humans occupying a much broader geographic area [29]. In short, not only do humans show the lowest species diversity among primates [30] but are also subdivided into populations that are more closely related than any other primate species, with the possible exception of bonobos (Pan paniscus) [18]. [....] The limited degree of differentiation among human populations does not suggest a history of long-term isolation and differentiation, but rather that genome variation was mostly shaped by our comparatively recent origin from a small number of founders 32, 33 who dispersed to colonize the whole planet 34, 35.
isolation by distance explains most human variation
isolation by distance explains most human variation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756148/ [T]he emerging scientific consensus is that while isolation by distance explained a large proportion of human population pair-wise Fst-values, cluster, the computational placeholder for race, explained <2% (Rosenberg et al., 2005; Handley et al., 2007). Thus, the indistinctiveness Fst-value argument, as construed here against the idea of biological reality of human races, is not simply about crude Fst measures. It also takes into consideration the part of Fst quantitatively explained by cluster/race (Table (Table2).2). So it goes beyond Wright's qualitative guideline about the use of Fst. The argument thus has two quantitative components, the unadjusted Fst-values and the adjusted values of cluster/race covariate. It can thus be considered the quantitative equivalent of the qualitative argument of lack of distinction Darwin used to question the taxonomic wisdom of categorizing humans into races in natural classification since the categories cannot be objectively defined (Maglo, 2011).
History of Failure
the history of classification is a history of inconsistency
Genetic Identification Has Low Importance
being able to identify races from genetic variation doesn't mean that that genetic variation is meaningful
being able to identify races from genetic variation doesn't mean that that genetic variation is meaningful: http://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7312/columbia/9780231156974.001.0001/upso-9780231156974-chapter-8
The largest misconception of this approach is that it ignores the fact that isolation by distance explains the vast majority of variation in human allele frequencies. Thus, 75 percent of human allele frequency variation is explained by geographic distance. This means that it is possible to produce the appearance of clustering simply by where one samples genetic variation. Serre and Paabo demonstrated that heterogeneous sampling gave rise to genetic clusters that were biologically meaningless. This is precisely what is occurring in biomedical research in the United States.
just because we can identify something doesn't mean it's biologically important: Leslie 2015 divided Britain into >10 different genetic groups based on recent (<1000yr) migrations, but different British populations do not seem meaningfully different
just because we can identify something doesn't mean it's biologically important: Leslie 2015 divided Britain into >10 different genetic groups based on recent (<1000yr) migrations, but different British populations do not seem meaningfully different: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14230
Genetic Identification Is Valid
we can identify various genetic clusters (for any arbitary number of clusters)
racial populations can be very accurately identified using large numbers of common SNPs (2C, error ~.12%); however, using larger numbers of races (2D, ~3%) or intermixed populations (2E, ~10%) significantly increases error
racial populations can be very accurately identified using large numbers of common SNPs (2C, error ~.12%); however, using larger numbers of races (2D, ~3%) or intermixed populations (2E, ~10%) significantly increases error: https://www.genetics.org/content/176/1/351 https://sci-hub.se/10.1534/genetics.106.067355
[T]he answer to the question How often is a pair of individuals from one population genetically more dissimilar than two individuals chosen from two different populations? depends on the number of polymorphisms used to define that dissimilarity and the populations being compared. The answer, can be read from Figure 2.
The effect of population sampling becomes more pronounced when 1000 loci are available. In the microarray data set, Math drops to zero at 1000 loci if only distinct populations are sampled. With geographically intermediate and admixed populations added, however, Math reaches an asymptotic value of 3.1%, CC remains well above zero, and even CT does not reach zero (microarray data, Figure 2, C and D; Table 1).
categorization based on ancestry outperforms categorization based on race
categorization based on ancestry outperforms categorization based on race: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01837-7 Our findings indicate that ancestry cross-classifies ethno-linguistic group as well as continent and race. To expound this point, Western Asian ancestry currently exists at its highest frequency in peoples from the Caucasus Mountains and the Levant and is the major ancestry in Abkhazian, Georgian, and Druze samples. Yet, significant amounts of Western Asian ancestry are present in samples with origins ranging from Morocco to Mongolia and from England to Ethiopia. That is, Western Asian ancestry simultaneously exists in Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as in the US racial categories Black or African American, Asian, and White. Thus, in contrast to race, ancestry is a valid genomic classifier.
Identification: Tang and Risch 2005 Is a Weak Study
Tang and Risch's 2005 study
^ this study uses flawed methodology: Maglo et. al. 2016
^ this study uses flawed methodology: Maglo et. al. 2016 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2016.00022/full "Curiously, [Tang 2005] perform[s] cluster analysis on admixed populations by bypassing [the correlated allele model]"
^ this study uses flawed methodology: Graves 2011
^ this study uses flawed methodology: Graves 2011: http://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7312/columbia/9780231156974.001.0001/upso-9780231156974-chapter-8
[T]he authors admit that they did not engage the admixture option in Structure. Given that two of the populations in question, US blacks and Mexican Americans are known to be admixed, this is a major error.
In the case of African Americans there is excellent indication that an admixture analysis would have shown quite different results. Another study using a much larger number of genetic markers (a full genome scan of about 250,000 SNPs) indicated that African American admixture ranged from as high as 99 percent to as low as 1 percent with a median value of 18%.
Identification: Neanderthal DNA
the average East Asian individual has ~55 Mb of Neanderthal DNA (100% of 55), South Asian ~55 Mb (100%), European ~51 Mb (93%), American ~50 Mb (91%), African ~17 (31%)
Eurasian people admixed heavily backwards into africa
Campbell and Tishkoff 2010: evidence for the out of Africa theory
quantification and direction of admixture among modern humans and other populations (neanderthals, denisovans, 4th group)
quantification and direction of admixture among modern humans and other populations (neanderthals, denisovans, 4th group) https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12886
Evolution Measured Through Gwas
Bird 2021: the within-family difference in observed polygenic scores (PGS) for higher educational attainment (EA) and cognitive performance (CP) in Lee 2018, represented by the black line, falls easily within the null distribution of random shuffling and is not significant
Bird 2021: the within-family difference in observed polygenic scores (PGS) for higher educational attainment (EA) and cognitive performance (CP) in Lee 2018, represented by the black line, falls easily within the null distribution of random shuffling and is not significant: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24216 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/ajpa.24216 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885246724795400262/bird2021.pdf
The claims for large, immutable group differences in intelligence and educational attainment are not supported in the least by these analyses.
Bird 2021: even using a 30pt IQ gap between Europeans and Africans and assuming h^2=.5, just ~15% of variance in IQ could be explained by genetics -- and this difference of ~6 IQ points could with equal likelihood result in higher scores of either Europeans or Africans
Bird 2021: even using a 30pt IQ gap between Europeans and Africans and assuming h^2=.5, just ~15% of variance in IQ could be explained by genetics -- and this difference of ~6 IQ points could with equal likelihood result in higher scores of either Europeans or Africans: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24216 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/ajpa.24216 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885246724795400262/bird2021.pdf
Bird 2021: genes associated with educational attainment and cognitive performance are less differentiated than control genes not associated with either, which actually suggests *convergent* selection (see Edge and Rosenberg 2015)
Bird 2021: genes associated with educational attainment and cognitive performance are less differentiated than control genes not associated with either, which actually suggests *convergent* selection (see Edge and Rosenberg 2015): https://kevinabird.github.io/2021/02/12/still-no-support.html
Background on Limits of Gwas and Race
Bird 2021: GWAS has limited ability to predict phenotypic outcomes like intelligence and income, and is often based on culturally biased and socially determined data
Bird 2021: GWAS has limited ability to predict phenotypic outcomes like intelligence and income, and is often based on culturally biased and socially determined data: https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/vol23-3-bio-politics/genetic-basis-genome-wide-association-studies-risk/
Evolution Measured Through Gwama: Selection Measured With Sroh
Joshi 2015: gene-wide association meta-analysis (GWAMA) using data from 102 studies (N=3542224) found no evidence for greater selection for education or for height among populations of African, European, Finnish, or isolated European ancestry
Joshi 2015: gene-wide association meta-analysis (GWAMA) using data from 102 studies (N=3542224) found no evidence for greater selection for education or for height among populations of African, European, Finnish, or isolated European ancestry: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14618 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/nature14618 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885245997477924894/joshi2015.pdf
Since directional dominance is predicted for traits under directional evolutionary selection, this study provides evidence that increased stature and cognitive function have been positively selected in human evolution, whereas many important risk factors for late-onset complex diseases may not have been.
We therefore assessed this by conducting stratified and covariate analyses. We found effects of similar magnitude and in the same direction for all four traits across isolated and non-isolated European, Finnish, African, Hispanic, East Asian and South and Central Asian populations (Extended Data Fig. 5a, Supplementary Table 3).
^ method: Joshi 2015: explanation of SROH
^ method: Joshi 2015: explanation of SROH: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14618 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/nature14618 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885245997477924894/joshi2015.pdf
High-density genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array data can now be used to assess genome-wide homozygosity directly, using genomic runs of homozygosity (ROH). Such runs are inferred to be homozygous-by-descent and are common in human populations. Summed ROH (SROH) is the sum of the length of these ROH, in megabases of DNA. FROH is the ratio of SROH to the total length of the genome. Like pedigree-based F (with which it is highly correlated), FROH estimates the probability of being homozygous at any site in the genome. FROH has been shown to vary widely within and between populations and is a powerful method of detecting genome-wide homozygosity effects.
Genetic Diversity and Intelligence
genetic heterozygosity is associated with increased cognition, education, height, and lung capacity
genetic heterozygosity is associated with increased cognition, education, height, and lung capacity: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516141/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/nature14618
Todo
The evolutionary reasoning has also been critiqued by research that casts doubt on the validity of the Cold Winters theory (MacEachern, 2006; Pesta & Poznanski, 2014; Wicherts et al., 2010)
The evolutionary reasoning has also been critiqued by research that casts doubt on the validity of the Cold Winters theory (MacEachern, 2006; Pesta & Poznanski, 2014; Wicherts et al., 2010)
MacEachern, S. (2006). Africanist archaeology and ancient IQ: Racial science and cultural evolution in the twenty-first century. World Archaeology, 38(1), 72 92.
MacEachern, S. (2006). Africanist archaeology and ancient IQ: Racial science and cultural evolution in the twenty-first century. World Archaeology, 38(1), 72 92.
Pesta, B. J., & Poznanski, P. J. (2014). Only in America: Cold winters theory, race, IQ and well-being. Intelligence, 46, 271 274
Pesta, B. J., & Poznanski, P. J. (2014). Only in America: Cold winters theory, race, IQ and well-being. Intelligence, 46, 271 274
Wicherts, J. M., Borsboom, D., & Dolan, C. V. (2010). Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples around 3000 years B.C. Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 104 106.
Wicherts, J. M., Borsboom, D., & Dolan, C. V. (2010). Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples around 3000 years B.C. Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 104 106.
Anthropological Data: Climate Not Key Driver
Bailey 2009: the main driver of historical human brain size growth was social competition, not climate; temperate climates had the largest human brain sizes
Bailey 2009: the main driver of historical human brain size growth was social competition, not climate; temperate climates had the largest human brain sizes: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-008-9054-0 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s12110-008-9054-0 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885248198027935744/bailey2009.pdf We provide a multivariate analysis that enables the simultaneous assessment of variables representing each of these potential selective forces. Data were collated for latitude, prevalence of harmful parasites, mean annual temperature, and variation in annual temperature for the location of 175 hominid crania dating from 1.9 million to 10 thousand years ago. We also included a proxy for population density and two indexes of paleoclimatic variability for the time at which each cranium was discovered. Results revealed independent contributions of population density, variation in paleoclimate, and temperature variation to the prediction of change in hominid cranial capacity (CC). **Although the effects of paleoclimatic variability and temperature variation provide support for climatic hypotheses, the proxy for population density predicted more unique variance in CC than all other variables. The pattern suggests multiple pressures drove hominid brain evolution and that the core selective force was social competition.** [....] The third panel shows a similar relationship between temperature variation and CC; as temperature variation increases to the mean of this variable, CC increases. However, at approximately 0.5 SD from the mean or higher, increases in temperature variation are associated with decreases in CC. The amplitude of this function is less than 200 cm3.
Maps of Temperature and Snowfall
northern winter temperatures map
southern winter temperatures map
snowfall map
Environment: Religion
iq by religion (of white adolescents) in the USA
Environment: Abuse
child abuse significantly increases PTSD, depression, suicide, risky sex, child abuse, and academic poor performance
child abuse significantly increases PTSD, depression, suicide, risky sex, child abuse, and academic poor performance: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00223980109603677 Average unweighted and weighted ds for each of the respective outcome variables were .50 and .40 for PTSD, .63 and .44 for depression, .64 and .44 for suicide, .59 and .29 for sexual promiscuity, .41 and .16 for victim-perpetrator cycle, and .24 and .19 for academic performance.
domestic violence between parents is strongly associated with IQ at age 5
Environment: Segregation (Response to "Even High-Income Black People" Have Low Scores)
even affluent black people and Hispanic people still live in impoverished, low-resource neighborhoods
even affluent black people and Hispanic people still live in impoverished, low-resource neighborhoods: https://s4.ad.brown.edu/Projects/Diversity/Data/Report/report0727.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191110183902/https://s4.ad.brown.edu/Projects/Diversity/Data/Report/report0727.pdf [I]n the 50 metros with the largest black populations, there is none where average black exposure to neighborhood poverty is less than 20 percent higher than that of whites, and only two metros where affluent blacks live in neighborhoods that are less poor than those of the average white
Environment: Lead
lead caused the rise in mental retardation (MR) of the 1960's-1990's (a new IQ test was implemented in 1992, causing the apparent flatline)
lead caused the rise in mental retardation (MR) of the 1960's-1990's (a new IQ test was implemented in 1992, causing the apparent flatline): http://election.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/violence_lead_Nevin.pdf
even among populations with blood lead of <7 mg/dL, lead reduction significantly predicted increased reading scores
even among populations with blood lead of <7 mg/dL, lead reduction significantly predicted increased reading scores: https://www.nber.org/papers/w22558.pdf
wikipedia category
b. 1904, Charles Drew modernized and scaled-up blood plasma transfusions
b. 1904, Charles Drew modernized and scaled-up blood plasma transfusions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Drew
Out of Drew's work, he was appointed director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in February 1941. The blood bank being in charge of blood for use by the U.S. Army and Navy, he disagreed with the exclusion of the blood of African-Americans from plasma-supply networks. In 1942, Drew resigned from his posts after the armed forces ruled that the blood of African-Americans would be accepted but would have to be stored separately from that of whites.[13]
b. 1942, Patricia Bath invented laser cataract surgery
b. 1942, Patricia Bath invented laser cataract surgery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Bath
Bath coined the term "Laser phaco" for the process, short for laser PHotoAblative Cataract surgery,[32] and developed the laserphaco probe, a medical device that improves on the use of lasers to remove cataracts, and "for ablating and removing cataract lenses". The device was completed in 1986 after Bath conducted research on lasers in Berlin and patented in 1988,[33] making her the first African-American woman to receive a patent for a medical purpose.[7] The device which quickly and nearly painlessly dissolves the cataract with a laser, irrigates and cleans the eye and permits the easy insertion of a new lens is used internationally to treat the disease.[3][2][4] Bath has continued to improve the device and has successfully restored vision to people who have been unable to see for decades.[15][34]
b. 1950, Sylvester Gates is extensively recognized for his work on quantum physics, string theory, and supersymmetry
b. 1950, Sylvester Gates is extensively recognized for his work on quantum physics, string theory, and supersymmetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_James_Gates
b. 1957, Mark Dean was cocreator of the IBM personal computer, holding 3 of its 9 original patents
b. 1957, Mark Dean was cocreator of the IBM personal computer, holding 3 of its 9 original patents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dean_(computer_scientist)
Measure: Education: Naep
current trends in NAEP scores predict that, by 2060, the white-black IQ gap would be 5 points
current trends in NAEP scores predict that, by 2060, the white-black IQ gap would be 5 points: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0138412 White-Black gaps from currently 11.1 IQ decrease to 6.5 IQ (optimistic model, Table 5) or 6.7 IQ (pessimistic model, Table 6), White-Hispanic gaps from 8.7 IQ to 3.5 IQ (op.) or 3.0 IQ (pe.)[.]
the black-white performance gap hugely declined on the NAEP between 1940 and 1980; the major gaps are now those of income and wealth
the black-white performance gap hugely declined on the NAEP between 1940 and 1980; the major gaps are now those of income and wealth: https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/reardon%20whither%20opportunity%20-%20chapter%205.pdf
since 1980, massive advancements have been made in reducing the black-white, Hispanic-white, and poor-rich gaps in reading, mathematics, and dropout rates
since 1980, massive advancements have been made in reducing the black-white, Hispanic-white, and poor-rich gaps in reading, mathematics, and dropout rates: https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/2018-01-10-Education-Inequity.pdf
^ critique of NAEP
^ critique of NAEP: https://archive.org/details/EarlHuntHumanIntelligence2010
After conducting extensive analyses of a variety of national educational assessments, Hedges and Nowell concluded that the reduction in the gap was largely due to a reduction in the proportion of African American students in the lowest ranks of the test scores. They did not find an increase in the proportion of African Americans in the highest ranks.143 Consistent with this position, the achievement gap in the NAEP is mirrored by a similar gap in SAT scores, which indicates group differences in cognitive skill in the self-selected, but socially important, subset of students who intend to obtain education beyond high school (Figure 11.25).
Measure: Education: Brasil
Rocha and Nascimento 2018: ethnicity and family income predict performance among students in Sao Paulo and Amazonas, but income is more predictive; ethnic differences were insignificant at lower income but significant at higher income; authors suggest that historical barriers and current advantages predispose certain ethnicites to success
Rocha and Nascimento 2018: ethnicity and family income predict performance among students in Sao Paulo and Amazonas, but income is more predictive; ethnic differences were insignificant at lower income but significant at higher income; authors suggest that historical barriers and current advantages predispose certain ethnicites to success: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/7/1/7/htm https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/jintelligence7010007 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/954564263790403684/rocha2018.pdf
Measure: Education: Dropout
the highschool graduation rate has hugely increased for black and Hispanic youth
although nonwhite people are underrepresented in STEM fields, they are not overwhelmingly so
although nonwhite people are underrepresented in STEM fields, they are not overwhelmingly so: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/09/7-facts-about-the-stem-workforce/
Measure: Twin Studies: Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study (MTRAS)
Thomas 2017: re-analysis of the MTRAS found that, after accounting for disproportionate attrition of low-IQ white respondents, there was no significant difference between white-white and black-white children
Thomas 2017: re-analysis of the MTRAS found that, after accounting for disproportionate attrition of low-IQ white respondents, there was no significant difference between white-white and black-white children: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/5/1/1 https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/jintelligence5010001 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/954564929116053584/thomas2017.pdf
A total of 25 White adoptees were in the study when it began, nine of whom were lost at follow-up. The lost adoptees had relatively low IQs, so the remaining White adoptees were unrepresentatively high in IQ[.] [....] One can prove this by comparing the original IQs of the full sample and the subgroup who were measured at both ages 7 and 17; the latter subgroup had an initial mean IQ of 117.6 (with a minimum IQ of 92) but the full sample had an initial mean of 111.5 (minimum 62).
Meanwhile, the BW and Black Black adoptees lost to follow-up hardly differed in IQ from the remaining adoptees, so attrition inflated those groups mean IQs by about only 0.2 and 0.7 points respectively.
Hence, allowing for attrition, the IQ differences between the White and the Black adoptees were no larger at age 17 than at age 7, a sign that the apparent enlarging was an artifact and not a genetic effect.
Thomas 2017: re-analysis of the MTRAS found that black-black childrens' adoptive families were worse in every environmental variable measured
Thomas 2017: re-analysis of the MTRAS found that black-black childrens' adoptive families were worse in every environmental variable measured: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/5/1/1 https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/jintelligence5010001 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/954564929116053584/thomas2017.pdf
With the widening explained, the only racial IQ differences left to comment on are those present at initial testing. Only the IQ of the Black Black adoptees, who scored 12.2 2.8 points below the BW adoptees, calls for a specific explanation. Differences in home environment are one possibility. On every reported environmental variable, the Black Black adoptees were worse off than both the BW and fully White adoptees, which I quantify by comparing the former against the BW adoptees, measuring the environmental differences in BW SDs. I use the BW adoptees as a comparison group here because Scarr and Weinberg [13] present more data for BW adoptees than White adoptees. The Black Black adoptees were older when adopted (by 2.1 SDs, or two years); had spent less time in their adoptive home (by 1.1 SDs); had more (by 0.4 SDs) and lower-quality (by 0.8 SDs) adoptive placements; and had adoptive parents with less education and lower mean IQ (by 0.2 0.3 SDs). Additionally, 97% of the BW adoptees had White mothers while the Black Black adoptees all had Black mothers, with whatever prenatal environmental differences that entailed.
Measure: Twin Studies: General
Thomas 2017: the results of the MTRAS were not replicated in other contemporary studies; in Tizard 1974 black-white children had (insignificantly) higher IQ means than white-white children; in Moore 1986 black-black children had (insignificantly) higher IQ means than black-white children
Thomas 2017: the results of the MTRAS were not replicated in other contemporary studies; in Tizard 1974 black-white children had (insignificantly) higher IQ means than white-white children; in Moore 1986 black-black children had (insignificantly) higher IQ means than black-white children: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/5/1/1 https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/jintelligence5010001 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/954564929116053584/thomas2017.pdf
Measure: Adoptee Studies: Recent
Kirkegaard 2019: paper by a racialist finds that there is an extremely small and insignificant IQ gap between White-Japanese and Black-Japanese children of American servicemen and Japanese women from a Japanese foster home
Kirkegaard 2019: paper by a racialist finds that there is an extremely small and insignificant IQ gap between White-Japanese and Black-Japanese children of American servicemen and Japanese women from a Japanese foster home: https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8611/1/1/10 https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/psych1010010 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/954561544274989136/kirkegaard2019.pdf additional note todo:
Finally, we note that there are long-existing datasets which contain cognitive data from transracial adoptees which have thus far not been explored by researchers (e.g., the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009). We urge researchers to investigate these datasets with more advanced psychometric methods (e.g., Jensen s method, multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis, local structural equation models, and item response theory analyses of various types).
Measure: Flynn Effect
national IQ is extremely highly associated with national development indicators (left), making causal inference very difficult; iq has little correlation with distance from African origins
national IQ is extremely highly associated with national development indicators (left), making causal inference very difficult; iq has little correlation with distance from African origins: http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/wicherts2010e.pdf
flynn effect by continent
scientific consensus among 75 experts supports the Flynn Effect
scientific consensus among 75 experts supports the Flynn Effect: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886916310984 Experts expected 21st century IQ increases in currently on average low-ability regions (+ 6 to + 7 IQ points, in Latin America, Africa, India) and in East Asia (+ 7 IQ), but not in the West (a stagnation, below + 1 IQ), with a small decline in the US ( 0.45 IQ). Similar results were obtained for all experts and experts on the Flynn effect itself (mean r = 0.90 to 0.97; N = 17). The results correlated strongly with and confirmed a recent meta-analysis on the causes of the Flynn effect (r = 0.65 to 0.71; Pietschnig & Voracek, 2015).
meta-study demonstrates that both fluid, crystalized, and spatial IQ have increased from 1909 to 2013
meta-study demonstrates that both fluid, crystalized, and spatial IQ have increased from 1909 to 2013: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691615577701 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1745691615577701
Measure: Flynn Effect Reversal / Dysgenics
metastudy: the flynn effect has declined but not reversed (slower growth but still growth)
metastudy: the flynn effect has declined but not reversed (slower growth but still growth): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691615577701 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1745691615577701 However, the pattern preceding this period appears to be considerably more differentiated, indicating that gains during the early 20th century have been relatively weak (0.80 IQ points per decade), then showed a sharp increase in the 1920s (7.20 IQ points per decade), decreased again from 1935 to 1947 (2.10 IQ points per decade), but later again recovered until 1976 (3.00 IQ points per decade; Table S3).
metastudy: no decline
metastudy: no decline: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/a0037173 However, although we cannot directly address cohort effects in this meta-analysis, we note that the magnitude of increases in Wechsler and SB scores has remained close to the nominal value of 3 IQ points per decade since 1984 (Flynn, 2009a).
^ flynn claims that very high IQ scores have declined using Piagetian Volume and Heaviness tests
^ flynn claims that very high IQ scores have declined using Piagetian Volume and Heaviness tests: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289617302787
the reverse Flynn effect occurs *within* families as well, suggesting genetics (eg, dysgenic effects, immigration) cannot be the primary cause
the reverse Flynn effect occurs *within* families as well, suggesting genetics (eg, dysgenic effects, immigration) cannot be the primary cause: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674
The results show that large positive and negative trends in cohort IQ operate within as well as across families. This implies that the trends are not due to a changing composition of families, and that there is at most a minor role for explanations involving genes (e.g., immigration and dysgenic fertility) and environmental factors largely fixed within families (e.g., parental education, socialization effects of low-ability parents, and family size). While such factors may be present, their influence is negligible compared with other environmental factors. Notably, this goes counter to the conclusion of a recent review on retrograde Flynn effects (6) and the expert opinions reported in a recent survey of intelligence researchers, which found the anti-Flynn effect being attributed mainly to genetics and immigration (7). As noted by two of the reviewers, the magnitude of the negative Flynn trend in our data itself speaks against the dysgenic hypothesis for retrograde Flynn effects, as changes in IQ over time are too large to plausibly reflect selection-driven genetic change in the population.
Polygenic scores that predict education are correlated with IQ and have been shown to correlate negatively with fertility in Icelandic and US data (16, 17). The authors of the Icelandic study extrapolate that their results imply a decline of 0.30 IQ point per decade, an effect sufficiently small to fall within the uncertainty bounds of the difference between across- and within-family trend estimates in the present study.
Measure: Long Term Iq Decline
original study: Woodley, Nijenhuis, Murphy 2013: reaction times have slowed since 1880, suggesting a decline in intelligence
this appears to be mainly an effect of lags from computerized testing and from increased average age
this appears to be mainly an effect of lags from computerized testing and from increased average age: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00131/full https://sci-hub.se/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00131
For example, in studies performed from 1884 to 1893, Francis Galton recorded visual SRT latencies that ranged from 181 to 189 ms in subjects ranging in age from 18 to 60 years (Johnson et al., 1985). These latencies are considerably shorter than those reported in recent SRT studies (Lowe and Rabbitt, 1998; Deary et al., 2001; Deary and Der, 2005; Der and Deary, 2006). Given the correlation between SRTs and fluid intelligence (Deary et al., 2001; Bugg et al., 2006), Woodley et al. (2013) concluded that the slowed SRTs in recent studies reflected a systematic reduction in processing speed, and hence fluid intelligence, in contemporary populations. However, an alternative explanation of the apparent SRT slowing is that the SRT latencies reported in recent studies have been inflated by hardware and software delays in computerbased paradigms (Dordonova and Dordonov, 2013). In support of this argument, contemporary studies using mechanical SRT measurements (Montare, 2010; Eckner et al., 2011), including SRT testing procedures similar to those used by Galton (Dordonova and Dordonov, 2013), report SRT latencies similar to those observed in the Victorian era.
Measure: Sub-Saharan Africa
Wicherts 2010: sub-saharan african IQ is estimated at 82.6; pre-2006 IQ at 78 (table 2 has sample populations); Lynn and Jensen systematically excluded higher-IQ estimate studies without any valid methodological reason
Wicherts 2010: sub-saharan african IQ is estimated at 82.6; pre-2006 IQ at 78 (table 2 has sample populations); Lynn and Jensen systematically excluded higher-IQ estimate studies without any valid methodological reason: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121155220.htm https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289609000634 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.intell.2009.05.002
Rindermann 2013: sub-saharan African IQ is estimated at 75
Rindermann 2013: sub-saharan African IQ is estimated at 75: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886912003741 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.paid.2012.06.022 The described IQ means vary between IQ 68 and 78. Averaging the given means for 2010 results in an estimated IQ of around 75 for African majority countries.
abut 260 million children are not and will not be in school (and it would cost just ~10 billion per year to fix that)
abut 260 million children are not and will not be in school (and it would cost just ~10 billion per year to fix that): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/11/260-million-school-global-fund-child-marriage-trafficking-labour
see also the sections on racial bias against black people in the criminal justice system
see also the sections on racial bias against black people in the criminal justice system
Theory of Crime: Left Realism: Victims of Crime
Laitman 2017: the direct cost of crime is estimated at 3.5% of GDP among Latin American countries; about 1.5% from public spending (ex: prisons), 1.4% from private spending (ex: security guards), 0.6% from social costs of victimization (ex: lost income and quality of life)
Laitman 2017: the direct cost of crime is estimated at 3.5% of GDP among Latin American countries; about 1.5% from public spending (ex: prisons), 1.4% from private spending (ex: security guards), 0.6% from social costs of victimization (ex: lost income and quality of life): https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/The-Costs-of-Crime-and-Violence-New-Evidence-and-Insights-in-Latin-America-and-the-Caribbean-(Executive-Summary).pdf
This volume also points out the steep costs of Latin America s high incarceration rates. For the 2010-2014 period, the region spent $6.5 billion per year to maintain and build prisons. On top of this, imprisoned individuals forgo an additional $7.3 billion annually in income. The two numbers together amount to 0.39 percent of GDP, more than the conditional cash transfers for the region s poor.
^ Laitman 2017: estimates by country
Sternheimer 2009: NCVS data shows that poor people are much more likely to be victims of violent crime
Sternheimer 2009: NCVS data shows that poor people are much more likely to be victims of violent crime: https://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/05/who-is-most-likely-to-be-a-crime-victim.html
Poor people are not just more likely to be robbed. Those at the lowest income level are victims of aggravated assault at the rate of 13 per 1,000, compared with 3 per 1,000 in the $75,000 and over category.
Most Violent Crime Is Concentrated Among Few Individuals
in Sweden from 1973 to 2004, most violent crime was committed by a very small portion of the population (1% does 63%)
in Sweden from 1973 to 2004, most violent crime was committed by a very small portion of the population (1% does 63%): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969807/
in Sweden, the key predictors of violent crime are poor school attendance, prior violent conviction, theft/drug/traffic conviction, mental disorders, and drug use
in Sweden, the key predictors of violent crime are poor school attendance, prior violent conviction, theft/drug/traffic conviction, mental disorders, and drug use: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969807/
Intelligence Impact on Crime: High
high nonverbal iq *is* protective against crime
Age Impact on Crime: High
Ulmer 2014: in the United States, age has a very strong effect on homicide: in 2010, ~50% of murderers were 15-25 years old and ~70% were 15-30
^ Brame 2003
Summary: Honor Permits Male Lethal Aggression to Defend One's Social Status
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: white Southern culture has a "culture of honor" where violence is used to protect against insults and other threats to one's status; this is reflected in higher historical and current white homicide rates
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: white Southern culture has a "culture of honor" where violence is used to protect against insults and other threats to one's status; this is reflected in higher historical and current white homicide rates: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1114500680 https://u1lib.org/book/5952420/95d4bf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/968552499231465472/nisbett2018.pdf
Materialist Explanation for Cultural Differences: Pastoral Animal Agriculture
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: white Southern culture honor culture may result from the greater use of pastoral agriculture in hills and dry plains, which are not suitable for the settled subsistence farming or cotton plantations; these regions have 2.6 the homicide rate of moist plains
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: white Southern culture honor culture may result from the greater use of pastoral agriculture in hills and dry plains, which are not suitable for the settled subsistence farming or cotton plantations; these regions have 2.6 the homicide rate of moist plains: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1114500680 https://u1lib.org/book/5952420/95d4bf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/968552499231465472/nisbett2018.pdf
Specific Evidence: Argument-Related Murders Higher, Felony-Related Murders Similar
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: white Southern culture honor culture encourages people to settle disputes violently; this is reflected in similar homicidal rates to commit a felony but higher homicide rates in response to arguments
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: white Southern culture honor culture encourages people to settle disputes violently; this is reflected in similar homicidal rates to commit a felony but higher homicide rates in response to arguments: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1114500680 https://u1lib.org/book/5952420/95d4bf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/968552499231465472/nisbett2018.pdf
Specific Evidence: Opinion Polls
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, white Southern culture is uniquely more likely to endorse violence to settle interpersonal disputes, but not more or less likely to endorse violence for other purposes
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, white Southern culture is uniquely more likely to endorse violence to settle interpersonal disputes, but not more or less likely to endorse violence for other purposes: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1114500680 https://u1lib.org/book/5952420/95d4bf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/968552499231465472/nisbett2018.pdf
Specific Evidence: Experimental Evidence
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, after getting bumped by someone in a testing session, white Southerners were much more likely to report anger than white Northerners, who were more likely to respond with amusement
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, after getting bumped by someone in a testing session, white Southerners were much more likely to report anger than white Northerners, who were more likely to respond with amusement: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1114500680 https://u1lib.org/book/5952420/95d4bf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/968552499231465472/nisbett2018.pdf
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, after getting insulted by someone in a testing session, white Southerners were much more likely to experience increased cortisol and testosterone than white Northerners, who showed no change
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, after getting insulted by someone in a testing session, white Southerners were much more likely to experience increased cortisol and testosterone than white Northerners, who showed no change: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1114500680 https://u1lib.org/book/5952420/95d4bf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/968552499231465472/nisbett2018.pdf
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, after getting insulted by someone in a testing session, white Southerners were much more likely to give a firm handshake and act domineering
Nisbett and Cohen 2018: as predicted by CoH, after getting insulted by someone in a testing session, white Southerners were much more likely to give a firm handshake and act domineering: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1114500680 https://u1lib.org/book/5952420/95d4bf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/968552499231465472/nisbett2018.pdf
Evidence for Higher or Lower Testosterone Between Racial Groups Is Very Variable
in a sample of 1881 bostonians, there were no racial differences in testosterone among black, white, and Hispanic people
in a sample of 1881 bostonians, there were no racial differences in testosterone among black, white, and Hispanic people: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/91/11/4326/2656429 With or without adjustment for covariates, there were no significant differences in testosterone, bioavailable testosterone, or SHBG levels by race/ethnicity. DHEAS levels differed by race/ethnicity before covariate adjustment; after adjustment this difference was attenuated. Before adjustment, DHT and DHT to testosterone ratios did not significantly differ by racial/ethnic group. After adjustment, there was evidence of racial/ethnic differences in DHT (P = 0.047) and DHT to testosterone (P = 0.038) levels. Black men had higher DHT levels and DHT to testosterone ratios than white and Hispanic men.
in a sample of 280, race did not affect testosterone or risk-taking
in a sample of 280, race did not affect testosterone or risk-taking: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453015002024 Because of our predominantly Caucasian samples, any effects of racial differences in testosterone would have to be extremely large to systematically influence our results. Nevertheless, we did examine if differences between Caucasians and non-Caucasians existed for cortisol, testosterone, and our risk-taking measures in each study, but none were found (ps .380). Furthermore, controlling for whether participants were Caucasian did not alter the significance of our reported Testosterone Cortisol interactions (ps .040), and moderated regression analysis testing 3-way Race Testosterone Cortisol interactions revealed that Caucasian status did not moderate our reported dual-hormone interactions (ps .307).
compared to white people, Hispanic people have higher testosterone, black people have higher estradiol (an estrogen)
compared to white people, Hispanic people have higher testosterone, black people have higher estradiol (an estrogen): https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/7/2519/2598282 In conclusion, in this large, nationally representative sample, there was no difference in circulating testosterone concentrations between non-Hispanic black and white men overall. However, black men had the highest estradiol level overall across all ages, which was not explained by racial differences in the prevalence of factors that influence hormone levels. Mexican-American men had hormonal profiles similar to non-Hispanic white men, with the exception of higher testosterone.
Ellis 1992: testosterone differed significantly black and white people but insignificantly between {white, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American} people
Ellis 1992: testosterone differed significantly black and white people but insignificantly between {white, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American} people: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0039128X92900325 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0039-128X(92)90032-5
Genetics Impact on Crime: High
in sweden, variance in violent crime between twin/sibling pairs is explained 55% by genetics explains (A), 20% by shared environment (C), and 25% by unique environment (E)
in sweden, variance in violent crime between twin/sibling pairs is explained 55% by genetics explains (A), 20% by shared environment (C), and 25% by unique environment (E): https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2015184
MAOA-uVNTR Warrior Gene: Terminology and Overview
MAOA or MAO-A: Monoamine oxidase A helps deaminate ("deactivate") neurologically important amine neurotransmitters including dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin
MAOA or MAO-A: Monoamine oxidase A helps deaminate ("deactivate") neurologically important amine neurotransmitters including dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A
MAOA-uVNTR: the region that regulates MAOA production; has multiple polymorphisms (types); can be shorter (lower-activity) or longer (higher-activity)
MAOA-uVNTR: the region that regulates MAOA production; has multiple polymorphisms (types); can be shorter (lower-activity) or longer (higher-activity)
rs1465108: Variant 1 of uVNTR
rs1465108: Variant 1 of uVNTR
rs909525: Variant 2 of uVNTR
rs909525: Variant 2 of uVNTR
rs2235186: Variant 3 of uVNTR
rs2235186: Variant 3 of uVNTR
rs2072743: Variant 4 of uVNTR
rs2072743: Variant 4 of uVNTR
rs1137070: Variant 5 of uVNTR
rs1137070: Variant 5 of uVNTR
rs3027409: Variant 6 of uVNTR
rs3027409: Variant 6 of uVNTR
rs6323: another MAOA polymorphism unrelated to uVNTR
rs6323: another MAOA polymorphism unrelated to uVNTR
Ficks 2014: summary of how MAOA works and the types of MAOA: TLDR is that 2R, 3R might cause violence, 3.5R and 4R might reduce violence, and 5R is unclear
Ficks 2014: summary of how MAOA works and the types of MAOA: TLDR is that 2R, 3R might cause violence, 3.5R and 4R might reduce violence, and 5R is unclear: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-014-9661-y http://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10519-014-9661-y https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/940005126976991242/ficks2014.pdf
The MAOA enzyme metabolizes monoamine neurotransmitters, including serotonin (Sabol et al. 1998). The promoter region of MAOA located on the short arm of the X chromosome contains a 30 base pair variable number of tandem repeats sequence (VNTR) consisting of 2, 3, 3.5, 4, or 5 repeated copies (Kim-Cohen et al. 2006; Sabol et al. 1998). Transcription of the 3-repeat (short) allele results in reduced MAOA activity and thus increased serotonin in the synapse, putatively increasing risk for aggression and ASB. The frequency of the risk allele in nonclinical samples of European ancestry ranges from 0.3 to 0.4, although the frequency of this allele in individuals of Asian and African ancestry appears to be substantially higher (*0.6 in both groups; Sabol et al. 1998). In contrast, the 4-repeat (long) allele results in increased MAOA activity and is considered the low-risk allele (Kim-Cohen et al. 2006). Of the less common alleles, the 3.5- repeat has shown evidence of activity similar to that of the 4-repeat and is thus considered high activity, whereas the 2-repeat is usually grouped with the 3-repeat allele and considered low activity (Kim-Cohen et al. 2006). Classification of the 5-repeat allele has been inconsistent across studies.
MAOA-uVNTR Warrior Gene: Variation by Race
racialist blog claiming to show variations in repeats by race
graphs from above table
MAOA-uVNTR Warrior Gene: Small Impact on Violence: Odds Ratio About 1.1 (10% More)
Vassos et al. 2014: meta-study: a metastudy of 31 genes across 185 studies covering >60,000 people found no evidence that any are significantly & consistently associated with aggression; MAOA OR of 1.08
Vassos et al. 2014: meta-study: a metastudy of 31 genes across 185 studies covering >60,000 people found no evidence that any are significantly & consistently associated with aggression; MAOA OR of 1.08: https://www.nature.com/articles/mp201331 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/mp.2013.31 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/940021203287027742/vassos2013.pdf to convert ES to odds ratios, add 1 gene list: (note: MAOA studies only discussed 3R and 3.5R, not 2R)
The upper row (A1, B1 and C1) presents allelic associations of 5HTTLPR, COMT and MAOA in males (MAOA-M) with aggression as a categorical outcome. The lower row (A2, B2 and C2) presents associations of the same polymorphisms with continuous outcomes under the additive model for 5HTTLPR and COMT and with the hemizygous genotype for MAOA in males.
HTR1B-G861C, 5HTTLPR, 5HTT-VNTR, BDNF-Val66Met, COMT-Val158Met, SLC6A3 40bpVNTR, DRD2-Taq1A, AR_(CAG)n, DRD4-ex3 48bpVNTR, MAOA promoter 30bpVNTR, TPH1-A779C/A218C, HTR2A-1438A/G
Ficks and Waldman 2014: meta-study: MAOA-uVNTR had an OR of 1.08x higher aggression with p=.035; 5HTTLPR had an OR of 1.41x higher aggression with p=4.25e-9)
MAOA-uVNTR Warrior Gene: Non-Metastudies
Rautiainen et al. 2016: Only rs4714329 and rs9471290 were significantly correlated with anti-social personality disorder (ASPD, n=173) compared to controls (n=3766); neither is a MAOA variant
Rautiainen et al. 2016: Only rs4714329 and rs9471290 were significantly correlated with anti-social personality disorder (ASPD, n=173) compared to controls (n=3766); neither is a MAOA variant: https://www.nature.com/articles/tp2016155 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/tp.2016.155 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/940031766243192912/rautiainen2016.pdf
Tiihonen et al. 2014: MAOA was significantly associated with repeated violent offense in a candidate gene study (pic 1) but no MAOA variant was signifciantly associated in GWAS (pic 2)
Tiihonen et al. 2014: MAOA was significantly associated with repeated violent offense in a candidate gene study (pic 1) but no MAOA variant was signifciantly associated in GWAS (pic 2): https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2014130 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/mp.2014.130 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/940034533775011901/tiihonen2014.pdf Concerning statistical significance, the P-value of 2.9 10 5 for the low-activity MAOA variant can be considered as extremely significant, as the Bonferroni-corrected level of significance in the candidate gene study was 0.025.
MAOA-uVNTR Warrior Gene: Greater Sensitivity to Childhood Maltreatment for Male Subjects
Caspi 2002: first study to find gene-environment interaction (G x E) effect of childhood abuse, adult violence, and MAOA
Caspi 2002: first study to find gene-environment interaction (G x E) effect of childhood abuse, adult violence, and MAOA: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1072290 https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.1072290 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/940035416130744330/caspi2002.pdf
Maltreated children with a genotype conferring high levels of MAOA expression were less likely to develop antisocial problems. These findings may partly explain why not all victims of maltreatment grow up to victimize others, and they provide epidemiological evidence that genotypes can moderate children s sensitivity to environmental insults.
Fergusson 2018: strong gene-environment (G x E) correlation between self-reported and police-reported antisocial behavior and self-repored abuse as a child (asked at 18 and 21, covers 15 behaviors)
Byrd and Manuck 2014: meta-analysis: strong gene-environment (G x E) correlation between antisocial behavior and abuse as a child; males with the low-activity MAOA allele (3R) had significantly greater effects from childhood maltreatment than males with high-activity MAOA alleles (4R); n>18400
Byrd and Manuck 2014: meta-analysis: strong gene-environment (G x E) correlation between antisocial behavior and abuse as a child; males with the low-activity MAOA allele (3R) had significantly greater effects from childhood maltreatment than males with high-activity MAOA alleles (4R); n>18400: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006322313004125 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.05.004 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/939934625323688026/byrd2014.pdf
It is noteworthy, too, that MAOA variation interacted with childhood maltreatment to predict outcomes referenced to both childhood/adolescence and adulthood; dependent measures of both continuous and categorical distribution; and both violent and non-violent antisocial behaviors. The latter finding suggests that the low activity MAOA genotype heightens maltreatment-dependent risk for a range of conduct problems, and not aggression or criminal violence specifically.
MAOA-uVNTR Warrior Gene: Greater Sensitivity to Childhood Maltreatment for Male Subjects
Ferraro 2020: no gene-environment (G x E) correlation between adult self-reported aggression and self-reported child exposure to abuse (just one binary question); controls for socioeconomic background; n=2506 from Add Health; study also found no significant correlation between MAOA ("polymorphism") and aggression when controlling for gender, abuse
Ferraro 2020: no gene-environment (G x E) correlation between adult self-reported aggression and self-reported child exposure to abuse (just one binary question); controls for socioeconomic background; n=2506 from Add Health; study also found no significant correlation between MAOA ("polymorphism") and aggression when controlling for gender, abuse: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/8296/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/939931942634266725/ferraro2020.pdf
MAOA-uVNTR Warrior Gene: The Famous Typo
it's 55%, not 77%
it's 55%, not 77%: http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.com/2011/10/kill-popular-science.html
[T]he low-activity version of the gene is even more common in Chinese men (77 percent of whom carry it), and the Chinese are neither descended from warriors in their recent history nor particularly prone to social pathology in modern societies. I previously debunked this, but I guess I must do so, again. A study by Lu et al found that 42 Taiwanese men, or 55% of their 77-subject control sample, had the 3-repeat allele of MAOA. Lea and Chambers copied the information incorrectly. Then, an editorial against MAOA research by a doctoral student repeated the falsehood.
Lead Impact on Crime: High
the difference between atmospheric lead between the least-enleadened and most-enleadened US county predicted 4x higher homicide rates
the difference between atmospheric lead between the least-enleadened and most-enleadened US county predicted 4x higher homicide rates: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/190628 http://sci-hub.se/10.1001/archpedi.155.5.579 Negative binomial regression was used to examine the relationship between air lead concentrations and the incidence of homicide across counties in the United States (N = 3111). After adjusting for sociologic confounding factors and 9 measures of air pollution, the only indictor of air pollution found to be associated with homicide rates was air lead concentration. Across all counties, estimated air lead concentrations ranged from 0 to 0.17 g/m3. The adjusted results suggest that the difference between the highest and lowest level of estimated air lead is associated with a homicide incidence rate ratio of 4.12 (95% confidence interval, 1.02-16.61).
suburban air lead strongly predicted assault rates in Australia
suburban air lead strongly predicted assault rates in Australia: https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0122-3 http://sci-hub.se/10.1186/s12940-016-0122-3 Accounting for socio-demographic covariates, lead in air remained a strong predictor of assault rates. For every additional g/m3 of lead in air, assault rates 21 years later increased by 163 per 100,000 population (see Table 3). Lead in air was the strongest predictor in the model, accounting for 29.8 % of the variance in assault rates 21 years later. By comparison, the proportion of the population aged 15 24 accounted for 5.4 % of the variance, and the proportion of the population who completed secondary school accounted for 5.0 %.
across the US, blood and gas lead both correlate strongly with teen pregnancy and violent crime rates
across the US, blood and gas lead both correlate strongly with teen pregnancy and violent crime rates: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ecin.12202 http://sci-hub.se/10.1111/ecin.12202
index crime rates line up reasonably well with lead over time
Differences in Lead and Incarceration and Race
young black male incarceration rates have declined faster than young white males, in accords with declining blood lead levels after slum clearance and lead removal efforts
young black male incarceration rates have declined faster than young white males, in accords with declining blood lead levels after slum clearance and lead removal efforts: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935108002727 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.envres.2008.12.003
young black male incarceration rates have declined faster than young white males, in accords with declining blood lead levels after slum clearance and lead removal efforts
young black male incarceration rates have declined faster than young white males, in accords with declining blood lead levels after slum clearance and lead removal efforts: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935108002727 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.envres.2008.12.003
Differences in Lead Exposure
CDC 2009: from 1999-2004, 1.4% of children aged 1-5 had elevated blood lead levels, including 3.4% of black children and 1.2% of white children
CDC 2009: from 1999-2004, 1.4% of children aged 1-5 had elevated blood lead levels, including 3.4% of black children and 1.2% of white children: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5809a1.htm
Environment: Violence and Parenting
exposure to violence (eg, observing/participating in fights) and parental monitoring accounts for 50% of the correlation between race and violent behavior
exposure to violence (eg, observing/participating in fights) and parental monitoring accounts for 50% of the correlation between race and violent behavior: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/104/4/878.full.pdf
sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect (as determined by court records) all predict future violent crime
sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect (as determined by court records) all predict future violent crime: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/244/4901/160/tab-pdf http://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.2704995
domestic violence in one's home and having peers with domestic violence in their homes (as determined by court records) both significantly decreased reading & math scores and increased the number of disciplinary incidents for elementary school students
domestic violence in one's home and having peers with domestic violence in their homes (as determined by court records) both significantly decreased reading & math scores and increased the number of disciplinary incidents for elementary school students: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25760199.pdf
self-reported exposure to violence is significantly related to hostility towards others
self-reported exposure to violence is significantly related to hostility towards others: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197198901981
age, exposure to violence, corporal punishment, family conflict, lack of feeling of purpose in life, depression, and hopelessness are all significantly correlated with the use of violence in black adolescents
age, exposure to violence, corporal punishment, family conflict, lack of feeling of purpose in life, depression, and hopelessness are all significantly correlated with the use of violence in black adolescents: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2105/AJPH.84.4.612
unsupportive environments, witnessing violence, psychological distress, and drug use all correlate with increased violent behavior
unsupportive environments, witnessing violence, psychological distress, and drug use all correlate with increased violent behavior: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022427898035002002
Environment: Poverty & Segregation
in Los Angeles, aggravated assault rate was positively correlated with neighborhood poverty, single motherhood, ethnic homogeneity, surrounding neighborhood poverty, and surrounding neighborhood crime rate
in Los Angeles, aggravated assault rate was positively correlated with neighborhood poverty, single motherhood, ethnic homogeneity, surrounding neighborhood poverty, and surrounding neighborhood crime rate: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022427818770790
black homicide is significantly positively correlated with black-white isolation (non-interaction), population size, unemployment, youth unattachment, and single mother households
black homicide is significantly positively correlated with black-white isolation (non-interaction), population size, unemployment, youth unattachment, and single mother households: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2580353.pdf
Environment: Inequality
inequality has a strong effect on crime
Environment: City Structure
green space is generally associated with decreased crime
green space is generally associated with decreased crime: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1524838015576412 Nevertheless, preliminary research examined in this systematic literature review demonstrated overwhelmingly positive associations between urban green space and decreased violence and crime. In addition, the findings presented offer important insight into current strengths and challenges of existing studies and highlight remaining research gaps.
Environment: Sports [Todo XXX Reread]
McNichols Sabia Kumpas 2017: more sports less crime
Environment: Many Environmental Causes
poverty, uneducation, poor social networks, and high toxicity factors (eg, lead exposure) explain 60% of the black-white gap in teen crime rates and about 1/6th of the variation of black teen crime rates in Chicago
poverty, uneducation, poor social networks, and high toxicity factors (eg, lead exposure) explain 60% of the black-white gap in teen crime rates and about 1/6th of the variation of black teen crime rates in Chicago: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/03/27/1820464116.full.pdf This difference in exposure is large enough to plausibly account for a substantial portion of racial disparities in intergenerational inequality. According to our model, for example, if the poor black boys in our sample had been exposed to the toxicity levels experienced by their white peers, their predicted likelihood of incarceration after controlling for parent income would have been 5.8 percentage points lower, or almost 60% of the gap between blacks and whites in our sample.
Environment: Wages
Hansen 2003: a higher proportion of workers in a given area with wages raised by the British April 1999 minimum wage law correlates with a larger reduction in crime
Hansen 2003: a higher proportion of workers in a given area with wages raised by the British April 1999 minimum wage law correlates with a larger reduction in crime: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-0084.64.s.6 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/1468-0084.64.s.6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/862848232630648832/hansen2002.pdf controls: demography [average age, proportion female, proportion young men, education, public sector job share], unemployment rate, clearance rates ["clear-up rate"]
Environment: Employment [Todo XXX Reread]
McNichols 2017: a 1 percent increase in labor market opportunities leads to a 1.08 percent decrease in arrests for 14-18-year-olds
McNichols 2017: a 1 percent increase in labor market opportunities leads to a 1.08 percent decrease in arrests for 14-18-year-olds: https://drewmcnichols.github.io/youth_employment_and_crime.pdf
Environment: Welfare
Lenhard 2021: states that implemented EITC benefits higher than >10% of federal EITC benefits saw a 10% reduction in violent crime, equal to about 40 per 100k
Lenhard 2021: states that implemented EITC benefits higher than >10% of federal EITC benefits saw a 10% reduction in violent crime, equal to about 40 per 100k: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/coep.12522 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/coep.12522 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/862877702242959410/lenhart2021.pdf controls: unemployment rate, GDP/capita, EITC take-up rates, insurance coverage, median income, mental health treatment parity laws, Medicaid and TANF laws, real minimum wage, housing prices, and state welfare waivers; categories: no EITC = no state EITC laws, low EITC = <10% of federal EITC, high EITC = >10% of federal EITC
[Delaware and Virginia] states introduced a state-level EITC of 20% of the federal credit and did not change their rates in any other years besides 2006. All states with no state EITC laws throughout the study period serve as the control group in the event study analysis. [....] In the DD analysis, I find that the 2006 policy implementation reduced violent crime by 13.3% (p < .01) in the two states, while leading to a small and imprecisely estimated increase in property crimes. These results further support the main findings of the study by indicating that EITC laws reduce the prevalence of violent crime.
Compared to states with no EITC in place, implementing a credit of at least 10% of the federal level is associated with 40 fewer violent g per 100,000 individuals, which corresponds to a 10.0% decline
Rudolph 2020: across OECD countries, higher social expenditure (specifically higher unemployment benefit replacement rates) correlated with lower homicide rates; a measure of decommodification did not correlate with homicide rates
Rudolph 2020: across OECD countries, higher social expenditure (specifically higher unemployment benefit replacement rates) correlated with lower homicide rates; a measure of decommodification did not correlate with homicide rates: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235220300623 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2020.101684 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/862869113788563456/rudolph2020.pdf
Environment: "Rap Music": Bullshit
among 3393 Toronto high schoolers, "Urban Music Enthusiast" (like rap and hip hop, dislike other music) status was not associated with property or violent crime for black people but was associated with property and violent crime for white and Asian people
among 3393 Toronto high schoolers, "Urban Music Enthusiast" (like rap and hip hop, dislike other music) status was not associated with property or violent crime for black people but was associated with property and violent crime for white and Asian people: https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/693/2235233 http://sci-hub.se/10.1353/sof.0.0271
different music genres are associated with different reported criminality rates (but causality cannot be derived from this data)
different music genres are associated with different reported criminality rates (but causality cannot be derived from this data): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0305735607068888 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0305735607068888 n=2532
The Dastardly Irish
the Irish are BORN CRIMINALS: in 1850, the Irish were 220% overrepresented in arrests and 550% overrepresented in convictions in New York City
the Irish are BORN CRIMINALS: in 1850, the Irish were 220% overrepresented in arrests and 550% overrepresented in convictions in New York City: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Americans_in_New_York_City By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Baltimore. https://pando.com/2015/03/17/slaughter-on-eighth-avenue-a-st-patricks-day-commemoration/ https://books.google.com/books?id=XQLYeUUdceoC&lpg=PA173&pg=PA57#v=onepage&q&f=false During 1859, 23 per cent of the persons arrested in New York City were native Americans, **55 per cent were born in Ireland, 10 per cent in Germany, 7 per cent in England and Scotland, and 5 per cent in other countries.76** [....] In the courts of special sessions, **slightly less than one per cent of the native American population were convicted in 1859, while 5.5 per cent of the Irish, 3 per cent of the Scotch, 2.5 per cent of the English, 2 per cent of the Canadians, 1.5 per cent of the French, and 1.2 per cent of the Germans were convicted.77** [....] Of 2000 prostitutes examined in 1858 at the Penitentiary Hospital on Blackwell's Island -- in effect, the city's venereal hospital -- 762 were natives of the United States and 1,238, or five eights of the total, were immigrants. [...] 706 in Ireland, 104 in England, 63 in Brisih north America, 52 in Scotland, and one in Wales, while 257 were natives of the German states, 17 of Switzerland, and 13 of France.
The Murderous Italians
the Italians are BORN CRIMINALS
Immigration Restriction Period in 1910's: Age
immigration restrictions in the 1910's and 20's caused the immigrant population to age relative to the native one -- and thus saw a corresponding decline in relative crime
immigration restrictions in the 1910's and 20's caused the immigrant population to age relative to the native one -- and thus saw a corresponding decline in relative crime: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831353/ By 1930, as shown in the top panel, more than half of the foreign-born population was over the age of 30, and more than 10% were 65 or older. These differences in age distributions can have a profound effect on perceptions of relative criminality because age is so strongly correlated with criminal behavior. Crime rates peak for males in late adolescence and decline rather precipitously thereafter. **Comparisons of native and immigrant criminality in 1930 that do not control for these differences in age distributions will necessarily bias the results in favor of immigrants.**
Athleticism and Media Bias: Relevant Meme
Key & Peele's Super Bowl Special in 2015
Basketball: Early Domination of the Sport by Jewish People Caused Commentators to Racializing Jewish People
Demby 2014: the history of basketball is intimately intertwined with the upward movement of Jewish people into "white" spaces
Demby 2014: the history of basketball is intimately intertwined with the upward movement of Jewish people into "white" spaces: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/04/08/300279224/how-stereotypes-explain-everything-and-nothing-at-all
Canter 2010: Jewish people invented modern basketball
Canter 2010: Jewish people invented modern basketball: http://web.archive.org/web/20120525102253/http://www.chutzpahmag.com/archives/1007
The game of basketball was invented in 1891 by a minister, James Naismith, who believed that it would promote muscular Christianity. That game would be unrecognizable today with its peach baskets, players passing the ball but never dribbling (a minor adjustment never envisioned by Naismith) and final scores like 5-4. It wasn t until Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century adopted the ultimate city game and over the course of a few decades, from the 20s to the 50s, added innovations in play and strategy that it went from one requiring brute strength to one that stressed skill and strategy. In their hands, basketball, first conceived as a simple, easy to play (but hard to master) game, became the crossover dribbling, three-point bombing sport that it is today. Contrary to cultural stereotypes, early in the 20th century, most Jewish kids played basketball and played it well.
Canter 2010: Jewish people dominated early basketball
Canter 2010: Jewish people dominated early basketball: http://web.archive.org/web/20120525102253/http://www.chutzpahmag.com/archives/1007
Just as stereotypes unfairly label today s black players, many were foisted on the Jewish players in the 20s and 30s. Jew Ball provided an easy mark for journalists like Paul Gallico, the eminent sports editor of the NY Daily News who expressed the goy excuse in a 1930s column, stating that the reason that basketball appeals to Hebrews is that the game places a premium on an alert scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness. Players who lost to all-Jewish teams whined that the shorter Jews had God-given better balance and speed. Genetic advantage or not, the fact is that in 1930, in the biggest college game of the year, with NYU facing CCNY (both teams were undefeated), 9 of the 10 starters were Jewish. How cool is that?
Entine 2001: top team names: Philly Hebreys, New York Whirlwinds, Cleveland Rosenblums
Entine 2001: top team names: Philly Hebreys, New York Whirlwinds, Cleveland Rosenblums: http://www.jewishmag.com/45mag/basketball/basketball.htm https://archive.ph/LRHA2
There are plenty of parallels between the Jewish stars of years past and today's "flashy" black players. The players then and now were subject to sometimes egregious racial stereotyping. The newest showmen of modern basketball, such as Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant are singled out for their "athleticism" and "natural talents", rather than their well-rounded play. Such stereotypes reflect a long tradition that goes back more than seven decades, when the game emerged from the ghettos of Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore. Sportswriters then used to wax about the gaudy skills of "natural athletes." Sounds familiar, except the stars had names like Dutch Garfinkel and Doc Lou Sugerman, and the top teams were the Philadelphia "Hebrews", the New York Whirlwinds and the Cleveland Rosenblums.
^ note that Entine embraces racialist views on sports
^ note that Entine embraces racialist views on sports: http://web.archive.org/web/20001018052506/http://www.jonentine.com/articles/question_of_race_recon.htm "
So why do we readily accept that evolution has turned out Jews with a genetic predisposition to Tay-Sachs or that colorectal cancer is far more common among those of West African descent, yet find it racist to suggest that West Africans have evolved into the world's best sprinters? Muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, lung capacity and a host of other variables that determine success in the world of sports are clearly not distributed evenly between populations. Biology circumscribes possibility. "Differences among athletes of elite caliber are so small that if you have an advantage that might be genetically based...it might be very, very significant," notes Michigan State University anthropologist Robert Malina, who studied black/white differences in earning his doctorate in anthropology at Penn. "The fraction of a second is the difference between the gold medal and fourth place.
comment by Ta-Nehisi Coates on the topic
thesis on the topic: Sclar 2008, *A sport at which Jews excel*
Gallico 1938
Body Morphology and Athleticism
in america, black people are slightly shorter and fatter than white people
in america, black people are slightly shorter and fatter than white people: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_03/sr03_039.pdf
Athleticism and Background
Scott et al. 2003: the vast majority of elite Ethiopian runners come from two provinces and elite Ethiopian marathon runners were dramatically more likely to have to travel long distance to school each day
Scott et al. 2003: the vast majority of elite Ethiopian runners come from two provinces and elite Ethiopian marathon runners were dramatically more likely to have to travel long distance to school each day: https://europepmc.org/article/med/14523311 https://sci-hub.se/10.1249/01.mss.0000089335.85254.89 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/941492503335538740/scott2003.pdf
Dubrow 2010: both white and black NBA players mostly came from middle class backgrounds
Media Bias: Race and Performance
Hughey and Goss 2015: in a sample of 326 articles discussing race and athletic performance in English-language newspapers, 203 (62%) supported racialist views for athlete success, 72 (22%) supported environmental views (usually culture or climate), and just 51 (16%) supported social constructivist views on race
Athleticism and Racialism Among Respondents
Hughey and Goss 2015: respondents to the 2004 General Social Survey were significantly more likely to attribute black athletic performance to genetics than white athletic performance
^ variable used: GENEVIG1 + GENEVIG2 + GENENVO1 + GENENVO2 + GENENVO3 + GENENVO4, several vignettes include either a black man or a white man who is athletic, then GENENVO# rate whether a trait was mostly environmental (1) or mostly genetic (21)
^ variable used: GENEVIG1 + GENEVIG2 + GENENVO1 + GENENVO2 + GENENVO3 + GENENVO4, several vignettes include either a black man or a white man who is athletic, then GENENVO# rate whether a trait was mostly environmental (1) or mostly genetic (21): https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/variables/3030/vshow
Morning 2009: "only blacks presence in a sport could be explained by biological characteristics, and even their absence from certain sports could be attributed to their ostensible physical capacities: e.g., lack of body fat to swim. When whites or other groups were at issue, however, culture replaced biology entirely as causal mechanism"
Morning 2009: "only blacks presence in a sport could be explained by biological characteristics, and even their absence from certain sports could be attributed to their ostensible physical capacities: e.g., lack of body fat to swim. When whites or other groups were at issue, however, culture replaced biology entirely as causal mechanism": https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/87/3/1167/2235029 https://sci-hub.se/10.1353/sof.0.0169 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957743535556284416/morning2009.pdf
Morphology: Height: No Strong Evidence of Difference, Especially at Younger Ages
ancestry can only explain 2-4% of the differences in size of healthy babies
ancestry can only explain 2-4% of the differences in size of healthy babies: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-07-07-babies-born-healthy-mums-are-strikingly-similar-size-worldwide https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213858714701214 With variance component analysis, **we showed that only between 1 9% and 3 5% of the total variability in fetal skeletal growth and newborn length could be attributed to between-site differences.** This is remarkably similar to the 3% variability reported by both the WHO MGRS for infant length,10 and Habicht and colleagues7 for child height. [....] Nevertheless, as we recognised in the protocol,15 some variability in these populations remained, mostly at the extremes of gestational age in some parameters. This variation might have arisen because of residual secular trends, true inter-ethnic diff erences,10 unstable estimations due to the small sample sizes at some gestational age windows, or simply diff erences in protocol implementation despite our best eff orts to standardise rigorously across the study sites. **However, we confirmed that such variability among sites represents only 3% of the total variance for skeletal growth, whereas the variability in individuals within a site is seven times higher (table 3).** [....] These results support pooling of the data for the construction of international standards. The data are in strong agreement with those of the WHO MGRS, and suggest that **differences reported in the scientific literature in fetal growth and newborn size are more likely due to environmental and socioeconomic differences than genetic variation, as has been shown for infants and children.**
metastudy: ethnicity can only explain 2.6% (1.5-4.6%) of the difference in height and 6.3% (2.6-9.1%) in weight of preschoolers
metastudy: ethnicity can only explain 2.6% (1.5-4.6%) of the difference in height and 6.3% (2.6-9.1%) in weight of preschoolers: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673674926634
the average height of adult South Korean people have grown to almost the adult height of American people
the average height of adult Japanese people have grown to almost the height of adult American people
the average height of adult Japanese people have grown to almost the height of adult American people: http://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/05/30/173407
Morphology: Skull Shape: No Obvious Reason to Suggest Selection
Relethford 2002: naive examination of skin color variation across areas suggests evolutionary selection (because differences are large between regions), but not cranial shape variation (and most examined features were similarly locally variant, not inter-regionally variant)
Relethford 2002: naive examination of skin color variation across areas suggests evolutionary selection (because differences are large between regions), but not cranial shape variation (and most examined features were similarly locally variant, not inter-regionally variant): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.10079 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/ajpa.10079 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982751435659829278/relethford2002.pdf These methods are applied to global data on craniometric variation (57 traits) and skin color. Multivariate analysis of craniometric variation shows results similar to those obtained from genetic markers and DNA polymorphisms: roughly 13% of the total diversity is among regions, 6% among local populations within regions, and 81% within local populations. This distribution is concordant with neutral genetic markers. Skin color shows the opposite pattern, with 88% of total variation among regions, 3% among local populations within regions, and 9% within local populations, a pattern shaped by natural selection.
Morphology: Dick Size: No Evidence of Difference
Veale 2015: as of 2015, there is no high-quality evidence for differences in penis size by race, and the available evidence suggests against it
Veale 2015: as of 2015, there is no high-quality evidence for differences in penis size by race, and the available evidence suggests against it: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bju.13010 http://sci-hub.se/10.1111/bju.13010 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/839630477287882762/veale2015.pdf
It is not possible from the present meta-analysis to draw any conclusions about any differences in penile size across different races. Lynn suggest that penis length and girth are greatest in Negroids (sub-Saharan Africans), intermediate in Caucasoids (Europeans, South Asians and North African), and smallest in Mongoloids (East Asians), but this is based upon studies that did not meet our present inclusion and exclusion criteria. The greatest proportion of the participants in the present meta-analysis were Caucasoids. There was only one study of 320 men in Negroids and two studies of 445 men in Mongoloids. There are no indications of differences in racial variability in our present study, e.g. the study from Nigeria was not a positive outlier. The question of racial variability can only be resolved by the measurements with large enough population being made by practitioners following the same method with other variables that may influence penis size (such as height) being kept constant. Future studies should also ensure they accurately report the race of their participants and conduct inter-rater reliability.
^ Nigerian study, 1985
^ Korean study, 2011
^ Tanzania study, 2013
^ Indian study, 2007
in Brazil, among 450 urological inpatients with no complaints, black men had penises 0.7 centimeters (0.276 inches) longer than white men
Genetic Testing Superior
genetic testing is far superior to ethnicity for providing personalized medicine
genetic testing is far superior to ethnicity for providing personalized medicine: https://ascpt.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/clpt.2008.114 Given these trends, race/ethnicity should be considered only a makeshift solution for personalized genomics because it is too approximate; known differences may occur within a defined category. One example of such variability is provided by CYP2D6, which is involved in metabolizing codeine, antipsychotics, and antidepressants. The CYP2D6*17 form has moderately lower enzymatic activity than the wild type. However, different populations within Africa can have different frequencies for a variant. The *17 allele in CYP2D6 is found in 9%, 17%, and 34% of the Ethiopian, Tanzanian, and Zimbabwean populations, respectively. Clearly, lumping together all of Africa obscures the differences between the populations. The label African or African-American is therefore insufficient to determine whether an individual comes from a population with a high frequency of the *17 allele. Even if an individual is known to be, for example, Ethiopian rather than Zimbabwean, the ancestry is less relevant than the true genotype, which could be easily resolved with today's technology.
Bidil
there's no evidence that bidil is more effective among african-americans -- it was only tested in african-americans
there's no evidence that bidil is more effective among african-americans -- it was only tested in african-americans: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0002716215591476 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0002716215591476
In 2001 NitroMed, a small pharmaceutical company focused on bringing BiDil to market and began a double-blind, placebo-controlled study to investigate BiDil s race specificity. They enrolled approximately one thousand people who self-identified as black (defined as of African descent) and hoped to demonstrate that BiDil was more effective than the placebo. In summer 2004, researchers halted the study prematurely; analysis of the initial data revealed a 43 percent decreased mortality rate among patients on BiDil compared to those on placebo.
Opponents of the race-specificity claim argued that such claims were empirically unfounded. After all, the NitroMed study did not enroll any other self-identified races (Dorr and Jones 2008). Hence, it actually had zero data on the effect of race specificity. Still, the power of biological determinism and racial essentialism held. After the FDA s advisory council met in June 2005 to consider arguments for and against BiDil and its claims of race-specific metabolism, the FDA approved BiDil as a medication indicated for use specifically in self-identified blacks (cf. Gellene 2005).
no, this study did not examine BIDIL -- it only found that black people are at higher risk of a particular kind of heart disease
no, this study did not examine BIDIL -- it only found that black people are at higher risk of a particular kind of heart disease: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199902253400804 http://sci-hub.se/10.1056/nejm199902253400804
Diabetes
race is not the best explanation for differences in diabetes: it's urbanization and resulting diet
race is not the best explanation for differences in diabetes: it's urbanization and resulting diet: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-4446.12118 http://sci-hub.se/10.1111/1468-4446.12118 To return to the extraordinarily high rate of diabetes among the Pima, an alternative to the genetic approach sets the analytic frame in a broader sociohistorical context. Those who approach the matter from this angle have a very different view of how to think about diabetes prevention and treatment. In the graphic below on prevalence of diabetes in related populations note the striking pattern of urban versus rural dwelling among six populations across the globe. Those who live in urban areas and consume a westernized diet have a very high rate of diabetes, but those who have lived in traditional sites where they practice traditional culture hardly experience any diabetes.
Cystic Fibrosis
racial medicine results in underdiagnosis of cycstic fibrosis among nonwhite people
racial medicine results in underdiagnosis of cycstic fibrosis among nonwhite people: https://www.nature.com/articles/gim2015157 The highest reported prevalence of CF is among individuals of Caucasian descent,7 in whom it is the leading cause of death among autosomal recessive diseases.7,8 It was assumed that CF only affected Caucasians, which skewed research efforts. [....] Several factors prevent the identification of CF patients on the African continent within the critical 6-week window. First, the assumption among clinicians that CF predominantly affects Caucasians has not been completely dispelled, resulting in underdiagnosis among non-Caucasians.
Race as Predictor of Politics
people are more divided by party identification than by race, religion, education, generation, or gender
people are more divided by party identification than by race, religion, education, generation, or gender: https://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/the-partisan-divide-on-political-values-grows-even-wider/
Support for Hate Speech Laws by Race
on support for hate speech laws, nonwhite Americans are closer to white Americans than are Europeans
^ Alternative Hypothesis literally agrees with me on this one
^ Alternative Hypothesis literally agrees with me on this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx5lABaziSM
Significance
political identity causes some people to change their racial, religious, or sexual identity
political identity causes some people to change their racial, religious, or sexual identity: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-are-shifting-the-rest-of-their-identity-to-match-their-politics/ Liberal Democrats were much more likely than conservative Republicans to start identifying as Latino or saying that their ancestry was African, Asian or Hispanic. Conservative Republicans were much more likely than liberal Democrats to become born-again Christians and to stop identifying as non-religious; liberal Democrats were much more likely than conservative Republicans to leave religion and stop describing themselves as born-again. Conservative Republicans were more likely than liberal Democrats to stop describing themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual; liberal-leaning Democrats were more likely to start identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual.
Liberals
exposure to Spanish speakers in Boston decreased support for immigration but the effect wore off over time
racism causes poor white people to oppose leftism
Multiple Questions: Support Declining
white republicans hold slightly more racist beliefs than white democrats; however, both have seen substantial (10-15%) decreases in explicit racist attitudes from 1990-2012:
white republicans hold slightly more racist beliefs than white democrats; however, both have seen substantial (10-15%) decreases in explicit racist attitudes from 1990-2012:: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-white-republicans-more-racist-than-white-democrats/
among non-Republicans, over 5 questions, white racism has declined over time
there has been a long decline of white racist attitudes
White Nationalism: Support Low & Flat Among White People
23 May 2018: 2% of white people consider themselves a supporter of the alt-right or white nationalist movement and 92% do not
21 April 2018: 2% of white people consider themselves a supporter of the alt-right or white nationalist movement and 92% do not
22 January-22 February 2018: 2% of white people consider themselves a supporter of the alt-right or white nationalist movement and 92% do not
16-20 August 2017: 8% of white people describe themselves as supporters of the alt-right and 50% an opponent
21 August-05 September 2017: among white people, antifa is more popular than white nationalism: 4% of white people support Neo-Nazism (80% oppose, 0.050:1); 5% of white people support the alt-right movement (53% oppose, 0.094:1); 8% support white nationalism (64% oppose, 0.125:1); 7% support antifa (42% oppose, 0.1666:1); 26% support Black Lives Matter (44% oppose, 0.619:1)
21 August-05 September 2017: among white people, antifa is more popular than white nationalism: 4% of white people support Neo-Nazism (80% oppose, 0.050:1); 5% of white people support the alt-right movement (53% oppose, 0.094:1); 8% support white nationalism (64% oppose, 0.125:1); 7% support antifa (42% oppose, 0.1666:1); 26% support Black Lives Matter (44% oppose, 0.619:1): http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-Reuters-UVA-Ipsos-Race-Poll-9-11-2017.pdf http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Condensed_FINAL_Tables_Aug21_to_Sep5_UVA_Race_prot.xlsx
2016: 6% of white people think their race is very/extremely important to their identity, think that "whites work[ing] together to change laws that are unfair to whites" is very/extremely important, and think that white people experience moderate discrimination
2016: 6% of white people think their race is very/extremely important to their identity, think that "whites work[ing] together to change laws that are unfair to whites" is very/extremely important, and think that white people experience moderate discrimination: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-demography-of-the-alt-right
Immigration: Support Medium & Flat Among White People
the portion of white people worried about illegal immigration is not rising
the portion of white people worried about illegal immigration is not rising: https://news.gallup.com/poll/206681/worry-illegal-immigration-steady.aspx
support for immigration has remained flat among white people 2001-2016
Discrimination Against White People: Support Medium & Increasing Among White People
3-15 September 2019 Pew poll: among white respondents, 66% say any discrimination against white people exist
1-2 March 2019 HarrisX: among white respondents, 62% say any discrimination against white people exists, 36% say "some" or "a lot" of discrimination against white people exists,
1-2 March 2019 HarrisX: among white respondents, 62% say any discrimination against white people exists, 36% say "some" or "a lot" of discrimination against white people exists,: https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/433270-poll-republicans-and-democrats-differ-strongly-on-whether-white https://archive.vn/wip/Fcsc3 n=1003 (682 white), MOE = 3.1% overall
26 Jan-9 April 2017 NPR: among white respondents, 55% agree with "discrimination against whites exists in America today"
Racism Against White People: Support Middling and Increasing
retrospectively, both black and white people report a decline in anti-black bias and an increase in anti-white bias; white people report more anti-white bias than anti-black bias in the 2000's
retrospectively, both black and white people report a decline in anti-black bias and an increase in anti-white bias; white people report more anti-white bias than anti-black bias in the 2000's: https://www.socialworktoday.com/news/dn_060311.shtml https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691611406922 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1745691611406922
from 2008 to 2015, the proportion of white people who claim that racism against white people is widespread has not risen
Implicit Association Test Is a Poor Metric
Oscwald 2013: meta-study
Oscwald 2013: meta-study: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0032734 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/a0032734 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/942595175191027795/oswald2013.pdf
The metaanalysis estimates the heterogeneity of effects within and across 2 domains of intergroup bias (interracial and interethnic), 6 criterion categories (interpersonal behavior, person perception, policy preference, microbehavior, response time, and brain activity), 2 versions of the IAT (stereotype and attitude IATs), 3 strategies for measuring explicit bias (feeling thermometers, multi-item explicit measures such as the Modern Racism Scale, and ad hoc measures of intergroup attitudes and stereotypes), and 4 criterion-scoring methods (computed majority minority difference scores, relative majority minority ratings, minority-only ratings, and majorityonly ratings). IATs were poor predictors of every criterion category other than brain activity, and the IATs performed no better than simple explicit measures. These results have important implications for the construct validity of IATs, for competing theories of prejudice and attitude behavior relations, and for measuring and modeling prejudice and discrimination.
Implicit Bias Weakly Correlates With Explicit Bias
Hofmann 2005: meta-study: IAT has a low but significantly positive correlation with explicit racism
Hofmann 2005: meta-study: IAT has a low but significantly positive correlation with explicit racism: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167205275613 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0146167205275613 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/942608073489539132/hofmann2005.pdf
Based on a sample of 126 studies, the mean effect size was .24, with approximately half of the variability across correlations attributable to moderator variables. Correlations systematically increased as a function of (a) increasing spontaneity of self-reports and (b) increasing conceptual correspondence between measures. These results suggest that implicit and explicit measures are generally related but that higher order inferences and lack of conceptual correspondence can reduce the influence of automatic associations on explicit self-reports.
Implicit Bias Weakly Correlates With Actual Behavior
Dehon 2017: across 9 studies, medical workers presented implicit bias against black people (+.33 standard deviations, between "slight" and "moderate") but there was no systematic bias towards prescribing white people with treatments
Dehon 2017: across 9 studies, medical workers presented implicit bias against black people (+.33 standard deviations, between "slight" and "moderate") but there was no systematic bias towards prescribing white people with treatments: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acem.13214 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/acem.13214 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/942595360575086693/dehon2017.pdf
Two of the nine studies found evidence of a relationship between implicit bias and physician clinical decision making. One of these two studies included EM providers. This moderate quality study, which included both EM and Internal Medicine residents, found that an implicit preference for whites was significantly associated with treating whites patients and not treating black patients with thrombolysis for myocardial infarction. 25 Another moderate quality study21 -22 found evidence of bias influencing pediatricians clinical decision making in 1 of 4 vignettes. This study reported that implicit preference for white people was associated with not prescribing black patients narcotic medication for postsurgical pain. However, in this same study, implicit preference for white people was also associated with prescribing white patients ibuprofen and not the ideal treatment (oxycodone). There was no evidence of a relationship between physician clinical decision making and any of the additional IAT measures , including the social class IAT, medical compliance IAT, quality care IAT.
Implicit Racism: Declined Over Time
implicit racism (measured by IAT) and explicit (measured by stated preference) has declined
implicit racism (measured by IAT) and explicit (measured by stated preference) has declined: https://psmag.com/social-justice/americans-are-becoming-less-racist-and-homophobic https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618813087 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0956797618813087 n=4,393,362,
The IAT (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) is a computerized task comparing reaction times to categorize paired concepts (in this case, social groups, e.g., young vs. elderly) and attributes (in this case, valence categories, e.g., good vs. bad).
Explicit preference. Explicit attitudes before 2007 were assessed on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 2 to 2, with higher scores indicating bias in favor of the typically preferred group (e.g., I strongly prefer young people to old people ) and lower scores indicating the reverse bias (e.g., I strongly prefer old people to young people ).
Addressing sample changes over time. Observed change may be an artifact of changes in the demographic composition of the sample over time. That is, observed attitude change toward neutrality could come not from true attitude change but from increasing numbers of female, liberal, young, non-White, or less-educated respondents, all of whom have been documented to have lower implicit bias (Nosek et al., 2007).
To control for sampling changes, we calculated weights for all participants on the demographic variables of age, race, gender, education, and political orientation.
Experimental Evidence: Ingroup Bias: No Evidence of White Bias, Evidence for Black Bias
across 17 experimental studies, non-Hispanic white & Hispanic participants exhibited no pro-white/pro-Hispanic bias, while non-Hispanic black participants exhibited a small pro-black bias
across 17 experimental studies, non-Hispanic white & Hispanic participants exhibited no pro-white/pro-Hispanic bias, while non-Hispanic black participants exhibited a small pro-black bias: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168017753862 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/2053168017753862 White participants: n=10435, pointe estimate=0.042, p=0.254, confidence interval=[-0.030, 0.115]; Black participants: n=2781, point estimate=0.313, p=0.002, confidence interval=[0.117, 0.508]; Hispanic participants: n=1261, point estimate=0.007, p=0.881, confidence interval=[-0.084, 0.097]
Experimental Evidence: Ingroup Bias: Evidence of Small Ingroup Bias in General
meta-analysis of 171 studies: standardized mean difference in ingroup cooperation compared to outgroup cooperation was 0.30 d (~1/3 of a standard deviation higher)
meta-analysis of 171 studies: standardized mean difference in ingroup cooperation compared to outgroup cooperation was 0.30 d (~1/3 of a standard deviation higher): https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0037737 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/a0037737
Summarizing four decades of experiments on intergroup discrimination in cooperation, we find that people demonstrate a consistently small positive preference to incur a personal cost to provide benefits to ingroup members, compared to outgroup members.
Interracial Marriage: Scope
the interracial marriage rate is rising
the interracial marriage rate is rising among white people
Interracial Marriage: Approval
1959-2013: approval of interracial marriage is rising
1990-2016: disapproval of interracial marriage is falling
Segregation
overall segregation is in decline
overall segregation is in decline: https://s4.ad.brown.edu/Projects/Diversity/Data/Report/report2.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191103000556/https://s4.ad.brown.edu/Projects/Diversity/Data/Report/report2.pdf segregation in decline: white-black (68.4 to 53.5), Hispanic-black (59.7 to 43.2), black-white (72.8 to 59.1), black-Hispanic (60.4 to 45.9), black-Asian (72.3 to 56.9), Asian-black (64.8 to 50.6); segregation not declining: white-hispanic, white-Asian, Hispanic-white, Hispanic-Asian, Asian-white, Asian-hispanic; segregation in increase: none
Polls: N Word
most black people say that nobody should be able to say the N word
most black people say that nobody should be able to say the N word: http://www.ijscl.net/article_32639.html http://www.ijscl.net/article_32639_64197ad6345fc25734a5b671730939fa.pdf
A majority (76%) of respondents agreed that it is never acceptable for nonBlacks to use the N-word with anyone in any situation. Fifty-six percent of respondents agreed that it is never acceptable for anyone to use N-word derivatives with anyone in any situation.
Dems as a whole are more likely than black people as a whole to think the N word is offensive
Support Over Time
support for black lives matter over time
Support for Related Issues
increased belief that police are racially biased
increased belief that police are racially biased: https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_060220/
A majority of Americans (57%) say that police officers facing a difficult or dangerous situation are more likely to use excessive force if the culprit is black, compared to one-third (33%) who say the police are just as likely to use excessive force against black and white culprits in the same type of situation. The current findings represent a marked change in public opinion from prior polls. In a poll of registered voters taken after the police shooting of Alton Sterling in Louisiana in July 2016, just 34% said blacks were more likely to be subject to excessive force while 52% said they were just as likely as whites. In December 2014, after a grand jury declined to indict a New York City police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, the results were 33% more likely and 58% just as likely.
increased belief that racial-ethnic discrimination is a big problem
increased belief that racial-ethnic discrimination is a big problem: https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_060220/
The poll finds that 76% of Americans now say that racial and ethnic discrimination is a big problem in the United States, while 16% say it is a lesser problem and just 7% say it is not a problem. The number who say discrimination is a big problem has increased from 51% in January 2015 and 68% in July 2016. Large majorities of Americans who are black (90%), from other minority groups (81%), and white (71%) say racial and ethnic discrimination is a big problem.
Demographics of Protesters
demographics of black lives matter protesters in June 2020: ~80% white, ~90% within their city, ~55% male
Irony
most Republicans who think people are too easily offended think Black Lives Matter is offensive; most Republicans who think you should be free to say your political beliefs at work think athletes shouldn't kneel during the national anthem
most Republicans who think people are too easily offended think Black Lives Matter is offensive; most Republicans who think you should be free to say your political beliefs at work think athletes shouldn't kneel during the national anthem: https://thepulseofthenation.com/#getting-all-offended/2
Few Protests Were Violent
the ACLED database found that 7% of protests associated with black lives matter were violent (involving destruction of property)
the ACLED database found that 7% of protests associated with black lives matter were violent (involving destruction of property): https://acleddata.com/special-projects/us-crisis-monitor/ https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/
The vast majority of demonstration events associated with the BLM movement are non-violent (see map below). In more than 93% of all demonstrations connected to the movement, demonstrators have not engaged in violence or destructive activity. Peaceful protests are reported in over 2,400 distinct locations around the country. Violent demonstrations,3 meanwhile, have been limited to fewer than 220 locations under 10% of the areas that experienced peaceful protests.
Violence Often Postceded State Intervention
the ACLED database found that violence did not occur during CHOP in Seattle but did occur more often afterward
Data Sources
ACLED data sources: reputable journalists or institutitons
ACLED data sources: reputable journalists or institutitons: https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/US-Crisis-Monitor_FAQs_August.pdf
The ACLED team reviews hundreds of sources each week to collect information on events. To date, information is drawn from over 1,500 distinct sources.
ACLED does not crowdsource information, such as through broad scraping Twitter for tweets, given that the source of such information cannot be verified. ACLED does use social media in its coverage; however, this is limited to only trusted, verified accounts, such as journalist accounts.
Definitions
ACLED definition of political violence
ACLED definition of political violence: https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/US-Crisis-Monitor_FAQs_August.pdf
[E]xcessive use of force by police; mass shootings; non-state militias operating in both urban and rural contexts[; ...] violent mobs which seek to take justice into their own hands outside of state law; violence involving extremist groups[; ...] hate crimes against minority and vulnerable populations[; ...] amongst others.
[O]nly those mass shootings (three or more victims) that are designed to terrorize a population or specific group (rather than target(s) personally connected to the perpetrator) are included.
ACLED includes events of police brutality where the details conform to our global standards of political violence. [....] [O]nly police engagements that are explicitly outside of established legal parameters are included, however unfair the existing constraints on police behavior may be.
ACLED captures hate crimes when they are perpetrated by groups, or single members of groups, and only codes an event perpetrated by a "lone wolf" without group affiliations in a public "mass" attack[.]
ACLED definition of rioting vs protesting
ACLED definition of rioting vs protesting: https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/US-Crisis-Monitor_FAQs_August.pdf
This is not a normative distinction, but rather a methodological one. Protesters refers to demonstrators that are peaceful, and not engaging in any destructive or disruptive behavior (e.g. violence, vandalism, looting, etc.) Rioters, on the other hand, refer to demonstrators engaging in violence, vandalism, looting, etc. If the character of an event changes from non-violent to violent, then the event will be coded as how it ultimately ended (i.e. violently). However, if two events occur concurrently in the same or a similar location, and it is clear that they are distinct, independent, and differ with respect to peaceful protest or rioting, two events are coded.
ACLED definitions of event types
ACLED definitions of event types: https://www.acleddata.com/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2017/10/ACLED_Codebook_2019FINAL_pbl.pdf
To work with political violence events specifically, look for events coded with Event Type Violence against civilians, Explosions/Remote violence, and Battles, as well as events coded with Event Type Riots with sub-event type Mob violence.
Rushin and Edwards 2018: Good Study, Do Cite
countywide Trump support in 2016 correlated with increased hate crimes in that county
countywide Trump support in 2016 correlated with increased hate crimes in that county: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3102652 https://sci-hub.se/10.2139/ssrn.3102652
Our outcome of interest is the count of hate crimes as reported by the FBI s UCR database. Hate crimes have been reported since 1992 and are released annually as part of the FBI s larger report on crime statistics.49 Our data set includes all quarterly reported hate crimes between 1992 and 2016.
Feinberg, Branton, and Martinez-Ebers 2018: Bad Study, Don't Cite
countywide Trump support in 2016 predicted a higher level of hate crimes
^ why this is a terrible study
trump did worse among white people than romney did
Bad Studies
trump vote is predicted by cultural anxiety
trump vote is predicted by cultural anxiety: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/white-working-class-trump-cultural-anxiety/525771/ https://www.prri.org/research/white-working-class-attitudes-economy-trade-immigration-election-donald-trump/
Fears about cultural displacement. White working-class voters who say they often feel like a stranger in their own land and who believe the U.S. needs protecting against foreign influence were 3.5 times more likely to favor Trump than those who did not share these concerns.
Economic hardship. Notably, while only marginally significant at conventional levels (P<0.1), being in fair or poor financial shape actually predicted support for Hillary Clinton among white working-class Americans, rather than support for Donald Trump. Those who reported being in fair or poor financial shape were 1.7 times more likely to support Clinton, compared to those who were in better financial shape.
trump vote is predicted by christian nationalism
trump vote is predicted by christian nationalism: https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article/79/2/147/4825283 _**Predictors:**_ **Sexism:** "Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than most women", "It is God s will that women care for children", "A preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works", "A husband should earn a larger salary than his wife". **Racism:** "Police officers in the United States treat blacks the same as whites", "Police officers in the United States shoot blacks more often because they are more violent than whites". **Xenophobia:** "Illegal immigrants from Mexico are mostly dangerous criminals." **Islamophobia:** "Refugees from the Middle East pose a terrorist threat to the United States", "Muslims hold values that are morally inferior to the values of people like me", "Muslims want to limit the personal freedoms of people like me", "Muslims endanger the physical safety of people like me". _**Controls:**_ economic satisfaction, political ideology, political party affiliation, conservative theological beliefs, conservative religious practice, conservative religious affiliation, biblical literalism views, frequency of attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer, frequency of reading sacred texts, religious identity (evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, black Protestants, Catholics, other religions, nonaffiliated), age, gender, race, marital status, city size, education, income.
trump vote is predicted by racism and sexism
trump vote is predicted by racism and sexism: https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/15/16781222/trump-racism-economic-anxiety-study https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/polq.12737 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/polq.12737 **Sexism:** 1. Women are too easily offended. 2. Many women are actually seeking special favors, such as hiring policies that favor them over men, under the guise of asking for "equality." 3. Women seek to gain power by getting control over men. 4. When women lose to men in a fair competition, they typically complain about being discriminated against. **Racism:** 1. White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin. 2. Racial problems in the U.S. are rare, isolated situations. 3. I am angry that racism exists
^ COBRAS scale
trump vote is predicted by isolated whiteness, not immigration or importation ("degree affected by globalism")
trump vote is predicted by isolated whiteness, not immigration or importation ("degree affected by globalism"): https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/11/trumps-supporters-dont-see-a-lot-of-immigrants/506066/ http://www.naid.ucla.edu/uploads/4/2/1/9/4219226/trumptrade_execsum_v16.pdf However, an examination of the geographical concentration of support for Donald Trump in the presidential primaries indicates a negative correlation between the number of Trump supporters and the population size of Mexican immigrants, as well as a negative correlation between Trump support and import competition from Mexico or China. Areas with high concentration of Mexican immigrants and import exposure to Mexico and China are actually more likely to favor Hillary another Republican candidate or Hillary Clinton.
Lower Immigration Predicts Higher Trump Vote
trump vote is predicted by isolated whiteness, not immigration or importation ("degree affected by globalism")
trump vote is predicted by isolated whiteness, not immigration or importation ("degree affected by globalism"): https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/08/racial-segregation-not-economic-hardship-explains-trump/495950/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2822059 The 2016 US presidential nominee Donald Trump has broken with the policies of previous Republican Party presidents on trade, immigration, and war, in favor of a more nationalist and populist platform. **Using detailed Gallup survey data for 125,000 American adults, we analyze the individual and geographic factors that predict a higher probability of viewing Trump favorably. The results show mixed evidence that economic distress has motivated Trump support. His supporters are less educated and more likely to work in blue collar occupations, but they earn relatively high household incomes and are no less likely to be unemployed or exposed to competition through trade or immigration. On the other hand, living in racially isolated communities with worse health outcomes, lower social mobility, less social capital, greater reliance on social security income and less reliance on capital income, predicts higher levels of Trump support.** We confirm the theoretical results of our regression analysis using machine learning algorithms and an extensive set of additional variables.
Elections
the far-right vote share over time in europe is very mixed
far-right vote share by country
guardian article w/ good graph? xxx reread
guardian article w/ good graph? xxx reread
Public Opinon Polls
immigration positive impact by country
too many immigrants by country
uncomfortable with changes caused by immigration by country
immigration pressuring public services by country
immigration hurting employment by country
immigration economic impacts by country
closing borders, no refugees by country
refugees aren't really refugees by country
confident in integration of immigration by country
the youth (under 30 years) are much more likely to vote for leftist parties (SPD ["Socialist Party of Germany"], Gr ne ["Greens"], Linke ["Left"]) than German voters in general
the youth (under 30 years) are much more likely to vote for leftist parties (SPD ["Socialist Party of Germany"], Gr ne ["Greens"], Linke ["Left"]) than German voters in general: https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/16-Nord-Kandidaten-ziehen-ins-EU-Parlament-ein,europawahl638.html https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/so-haben-junge-europaer-gewaehlt-100.html
Elections
Results 2017/2012: Socialists (28.63/6.36,-22.3), Republicans (27.18/20.01,-7.1), National Front (17.9/21.3,+4.6), Melenchon (11.10/19.58,+8.5), Macron (0/24.01,+24)
Le Pen did monotonically better among older groups (execpt 60+ year-olds who're loyal to the Gaulist National Front)
Polls on Immigration
Opposition to immigration has not risen from 2002-2014 in France
Opposition to immigration has not risen from 2002-2014 in France: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/46245/RSCAS_2017_25.pdf
Explicit Black Socioeconomic Independence
2015 Feb 17-20 YouGov: among Black respondents, 22% supported separatism, 55% supported integration, and 23% did not know
2015 Feb 17-20 YouGov: among Black respondents, 22% supported separatism, 55% supported integration, and 23% did not know: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2015/02/21/malcolm-x http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/cppj72co4z/tabs_OPI_malcolm_x_20150220.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885237851653017671/yougov2015.pdf
Do you think blacks or African-Americans will get ahead better in this country by controlling their own schools, running their own business, and living together in their own neighborhoods OR do you think they will get ahead better through integration with the white people in schools, jobs, and neighborhoods?
Studies Todo
1984 National Black Election Study (NBES-84)
1984-88 National Black Election Panel Study (NBEPS-84-88)
1984-88 National Black Election Panel Study (NBEPS-84-88): https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/9954
^
^ https://www.csmonitor.com/1994/0505/05013.html ``The discontent we saw in the mid- and late-1980s that was concentrated among poor African-Americans has spread among African-Americans of all social backgrounds,'' says Michael Dawson, a University of Chicago political science professor and the author of a report on the survey. Some 56 percent of black Americans say that blacks should participate in black-only organizations and half said blacks should form their own political party - a jump from just 24 percent in 1988, according to Dr. Dawson.
1993 National Black Politics Study (NBPS-93)
^
^ https://www.jstor.org/stable/3512367 National Black Politics Study (NBPS), conducted by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago in 1993. The NBPS is a national cross sectional sur- vey that yields a sample of 12063 African American adult res ... were asked their degree of agreement with the fol- lowing statements: (a) Blacks should participate in black only organizations; (b) Blacks should always vote for black candidates when they run; (c) Black people should shop in black stores whenever possible; (d) Blacks should support the creation of all male public schools for black youth; (e) Black children should study an African language; (f) Blacks should have control over the government in mostly black communities; (g) Blacks should have control over the economy in mostly black communities; (h) Blacks should have their own separate nation. This index, ranging from 0-32, was highly reliable with an alpha coeffici
1996 National Black Election Study (NBES-96)
1996 National Black Election Study Pilot (NBES-96p)
1996 National Black Election Study Pilot (NBES-96p): https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/1125
National Survey of Black Americans 1979-80, 87-88, 88-89, 92 (NSBA)
National Survey of Black Americans 1979-80, 87-88, 88-89, 92 (NSBA): https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/6668
check these
Reparations: Gov to Descendants of Slaves
2018 July 13-16 Data For Progress: reparations was +15% among working class POC and +5% among college-educated POC
2018 July 13-16 Data For Progress: reparations was +15% among working class POC and +5% among college-educated POC: https://www.dataforprogress.org/polling-the-left-agenda
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 58% said the US should "pay money to African-Americans who are descendants of slaves" and 35% said should not
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 58% said the US should "pay money to African-Americans who are descendants of slaves" and 35% said should not: https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/510-reparations-for-slavery-in-the-united-states/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885237791213109288/marist2016.pdf "As a way to make up for the harm caused by slavery and other forms of racial discrimination, do you think the United States should or should not pay reparations, that is, should or should not pay money to African-Americans who are descendants of slaves?"
2015 Aug 25-Oct 3 CNN-Kaiser: among black respondents, 52% supported "cash payments to Black Americans who are descendants of slaves"
2015 Aug 25-Oct 3 CNN-Kaiser: among black respondents, 52% supported "cash payments to Black Americans who are descendants of slaves": https://www.kff.org/other/report/survey-of-americans-on-race/ https://files.kff.org/attachment/report-survey-of-americans-on-race
2015 Aug 25-Oct 3 CNN-Kaiser: among black respondents, 60% supported "free healthcare for Black Americans who are descendants of slaves"
2015 Aug 25-Oct 3 CNN-Kaiser: among black respondents, 60% supported "free healthcare for Black Americans who are descendants of slaves": https://www.kff.org/other/report/survey-of-americans-on-race/ https://files.kff.org/attachment/report-survey-of-americans-on-race
2015 Feb 17-20 YouGov: among black respondents, 61% supported "cash payments to black Americans who are descendants of slaves", 19% opposed, and 21% were not sure
2015 Feb 17-20 YouGov: among black respondents, 61% supported "cash payments to black Americans who are descendants of slaves", 19% opposed, and 21% were not sure: https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2015/02/21/malcolm-x http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/cppj72co4z/tabs_OPI_malcolm_x_20150220.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885237851653017671/yougov2015.pdf
Do you think the government should or should not make cash payments to black Americans who are descendants of slaves?
2014 May 23-27 YouGov: among black respondents, 59% supported "cash payments" and 63% supported "education and job training programs" offered by the government to "black Americans who are the descendants of slaves"
2014 May 23-27 YouGov: among black respondents, 59% supported "cash payments" and 63% supported "education and job training programs" offered by the government to "black Americans who are the descendants of slaves": https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/06/02/reparations
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-americans-think-about-reparations-and-other-race-related-questions/ Reparations: A July 2018 survey from the left-leaning Data for Progress found that 26 percent of Americans supported some kind of compensation or cash benefits for the descendants of slaves. A May 2016 Marist survey also found that 26 percent of Americans said the U.S. should pay reparations as a way to make up for the harm caused by slavery and other forms of racial discrimination. 3
2002 Jan 25-Feb 10 CNN/USA Today/Gallup: among black respondents, 55% supported "cash payments to Black Americans who are descendants of slaves"
2002 Jan 25-Feb 10 CNN/USA Today/Gallup: among black respondents, 55% supported "cash payments to Black Americans who are descendants of slaves": https://www.kff.org/other/report/survey-of-americans-on-race/ https://files.kff.org/attachment/topline-methodology-survey-of-americans-on-race
Reparations: Gov to Black Citizens
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 63% said the US should "pay money to African-Americans who are U.S. citizens" and 32% said should not
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 63% said the US should "pay money to African-Americans who are U.S. citizens" and 32% said should not: https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/510-reparations-for-slavery-in-the-united-states/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885237791213109288/marist2016.pdf "Do you think the United States should or should not pay reparations for slavery and other forms of racial discrimination, that is, should or should not pay money to African-Americans who are U.S. citizens?"
Reparations: Private Companies
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 75% said private companies that admit profiting from slavery should "pay money to African-Americans who descendants of slaves" and 21% said should not
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 75% said private companies that admit profiting from slavery should "pay money to African-Americans who descendants of slaves" and 21% said should not: https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/510-reparations-for-slavery-in-the-united-states/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885237791213109288/marist2016.pdf "Do you think private companies who have admitted and apologized for profiting from American Slavery, should or should not pay reparations, that is, should or should not pay money to African-Americans who are descendants of slaves?"
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 64% said private companies that admit profiting from slavery should "pay money to African-Americans who are U.S. citizens" and 33% said should not
2016 May Marist: among black respondents, 64% said private companies that admit profiting from slavery should "pay money to African-Americans who are U.S. citizens" and 33% said should not: https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/510-reparations-for-slavery-in-the-united-states/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/885237791213109288/marist2016.pdf "Do you think private companies who have admitted and apologized for profiting from American Slavery, should or should not pay reparations, that is, should or should not "pay money to African-Americans who are U.S. citizens?"
Government Programs: Affirmative Action, School Funding, Civil Rights Laws
2018 Gallup: among black respondents from 2001-2018, between 70 and 75% support "affirmative action programs for racial minorities"
2018 Gallup: among black respondents from 2001-2018, between 70 and 75% support "affirmative action programs for racial minorities": https://news.gallup.com/poll/247046/americans-support-affirmative-action-programs-rises.aspx
2016 Gallup: among black respondents from 2001-2016, between 54 and 71% support "a major government role to improve the social and economic positions of minority groups"
2016 Gallup: among black respondents from 2001-2016, between 54 and 71% support "a major government role to improve the social and economic positions of minority groups": https://news.gallup.com/poll/195407/favor-major-government-role-assisting-minorities.aspx
2015 Aug 25-Oct 3 CNN-Kaiser: among black respondents, 89% said it is "the responsibility of the federal government" to ensure equal treatment by "the courts and police", 82% said equal quality in schools, and 67% equal incomes
2015 Aug 25-Oct 3 CNN-Kaiser: among black respondents, 89% said it is "the responsibility of the federal government" to ensure equal treatment by "the courts and police", 82% said equal quality in schools, and 67% equal incomes: https://www.kff.org/other/report/survey-of-americans-on-race/ https://files.kff.org/attachment/report-survey-of-americans-on-race
2015 Gallup: among black respondents from 1993-2015, between 70 and 52% have support "new civil rights laws laws are needed to reduce discrimination against blacks"
2015 Gallup: among black respondents from 1993-2015, between 70 and 52% have support "new civil rights laws laws are needed to reduce discrimination against blacks": https://news.gallup.com/poll/184523/americans-less-positive-black-civil-rights-progress.aspx
Specific Studies
london: diversity actually *increases trust* and segregation decreases trust for young people (who grew up in a diverse society) but not for old people
london: diversity actually *increases trust* and segregation decreases trust for young people (who grew up in a diverse society) but not for old people: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2013.831932 http://sci-hub.se/10.1080/01419870.2013.831932 These relationships are strongly moderated by age cohort: the positive effect of diversity and the negative effect of segregation among the youngest adults both weaken over successive cohorts, until the direction of the association is reversed among the oldest residents of London's neighbourhoods. The moderating effect of age on the association between diversity and social cohesion for white residents provides further evidence in support of the idea that growing up in a multicultural society in which ethnic minorities play a visible and positive role serves to shift the attitudes and behaviours of younger ethnic majority cohorts in prosocial directions. [....] We include the following individual-level control variables that are plausibly related to both social cohesion and neighbourhood preference: age; sex; ethnic group; social class; marital status; housing tenure; and the length of time that an individual has lived in the area.
for four measures of positive neighborhood beliefs, class was significant for 4, age for 3, education for 3, racial diversity for 1
Metastudies: Ethnic Diversity
across 87 studies, ethnic diversity negatively predicted trust, but could explain just 0.66% of variation in trust
across 87 studies, ethnic diversity negatively predicted trust, but could explain just 0.66% of variation in trust: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052918-020708 https://sci-hub.se/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052918-020708 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/767112460351176784/dineson2020.pdf In substantive terms, the partial correlation of -0.0256 (se = 0.0044) between ethnic diversity and trust is rather modest. Under the scenario of our back-of-the-envelope calculation (see above), it corresponds to a 0.66% increase in the aggregate between-context unit R^2 after all other variables in the model have been accounted for (see Online Supplement C).
in metastudy, about as many studies studies reject as support the "diversity causes distrust" hypothesis (support:reject ratio of 1:2 for country, 2:1 for region, 1:2 for city, 1.5:1 for neighborhood)
in metastudy, about as many studies studies reject as support the "diversity causes distrust" hypothesis (support:reject ratio of 1:2 for country, 2:1 for region, 1:2 for city, 1.5:1 for neighborhood): https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043309 https://sci-hub.se/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043309 We find that (a) there is consistent support for the constrict claim for aspects of social cohesion that are spatially bounded to neighborhoods, (b) support for the constrict claim is more common in the United States than in other countries, and (c) ethnic diversity is not related to less interethnic social cohesion.
Metastudies: Contact Theory
in metastudy, most studies show that contact hypotheses between individuals reduce bigotry by about 0.2-0.4 standard deviation
increased foreign-born populations increase trust (multi- and nonmulticulturalist, equal societies), increase organization membership (multi- and nonmulticulturalist, equal societies), increase political action (multiculturalist, equal societies) across the world, 1980-2000, N=66573 to 77756
Diverse Firms Perform Better
race-diverse startups are more successful than race-homogenous
race-diverse retail stores are more successful than race-homogenous
Longer Sentences for All Crime Types
across all cases and with all controls, black males received 18.5% longer sentence than comparable white males
across all cases and with all controls, black males received 18.5% longer sentence than comparable white males: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2017/20171114_Demographics.pdf
The dependent variable used in each of the analyses was an offender s total sentence length, in months, which included alternatives to imprisonment. Probationary sentences without conditions of confinement are included as sentences of zero months. The independent variables were: The presumptive sentence, which is the bottom of the applicable sentencing guideline range that applies in a case (i.e., the minimum sentence, in months, to which the offender was subject under the sentencing guidelines, taking into account all guideline, statutory, and mandatory minimum provisions); Type of offense committed (violent, sexual, pornography, drug trafficking, white collar, immigration, or other); Whether a statutory mandatory minimum punishment was applied at sentencing; Whether the court determined that a sentence outside the applicable sentencing guideline range was warranted; Detention status (whether the offender had been released on bail prior to sentencing); Whether the offender pleaded guilty; Race of the offender paired with the gender of the offender; Citizenship of the offender (whether the offender was a United States citizen); Educational level of the offender; and Age of the offender.
Longer Sentences From Republicans
Republican-appointed appointed give black defendants 3.0 months longer sentences than similarly situated defendants before Democratic-appointed judges (which explains 65% of the average difference in sentence length between black and white people)
Republican-appointed appointed give black defendants 3.0 months longer sentences than similarly situated defendants before Democratic-appointed judges (which explains 65% of the average difference in sentence length between black and white people): https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/us/politics/black-defendants-women-prison-terms-study.html https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170329 https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/pol.20170329 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/775912725083062272/cohen2019.pdf
Exploiting random case assignment, we find that Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to 3.0 more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to 2.0 fewer months than similar males compared to Democratic-appointed judges, 65 percent of the baseline racial sentence gap and 17 percent of the baseline gender sentence gap, respectively. These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.
Evidence for Racial Bias
strong evidence for racial bias in the criminal justice system exists
strong evidence for racial bias in the criminal justice system exists: https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/2170-new-study-by-professor-david-s-abrams-confirms https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1800840 We produce these unbiased data with a Monte Carlo simulation by sampling from the actual data but mechanically breaking the judgedefendant race link. We find that there is substantial excess heterogeneity in the empirical distribution of the racial gap in the incarceration rate. The quantitative impact of this gap on sentencing disparity is of considerable magnitude. If a defendant assigned to a 10th-percentile judge was instead sentenced by a 90th-percentile judge, the racial gap in the incarceration rate would rise by a full 18 percentage points. [xxx reread poorly described!!!]
Police Killings Are Racially Biased
fryer data from texas: nonwhite people are more likely to be victims of police force but not of lethal force
nonwhite people are more likely to be killed by police in a variety of situations
Swat Raids Are Racially Biased
SWAT team raids disproportionately target black neighborhoods
Drug Arrests Are Racially Biased
Lopez 2016: in 2013, black people were just 1.1x more likely to report illicit drug use than white people, but black people are 2.5x more likely to get arrested for it
Lopez 2016: in 2013, black people were just 1.1x more likely to report illicit drug use than white people, but black people are 2.5x more likely to get arrested for it: https://www.vox.com/cards/war-on-drugs-marijuana-cocaine-heroin-meth/war-on-drugs-effect https://archive.ph/YE8ml
NSDUH 2013: 10.5% of black people reported using illicit drugs, which is just 1.1x higher than 9.5% of white people
NSDUH 2013: 10.5% of black people reported using illicit drugs, which is just 1.1x higher than 9.5% of white people: https://archive.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2013SummNatFindDetTables/NationalFindings/NSDUHresults2013.htm#2.7
NAP 2014: in 2011, 1500 per 100k black people get arrested for drug crimes, which is 3.16x more often than 475 per 100k for white people; this overrepresentation is dramatically higher than 1980, when 650 per 100k black people get arrested for drug crimes, which is 2.6x more often than 250 per 100k for white people
NAP 2014: in 2011, 1500 per 100k black people get arrested for drug crimes, which is 3.16x more often than 475 per 100k for white people; this overrepresentation is dramatically higher than 1980, when 650 per 100k black people get arrested for drug crimes, which is 2.6x more often than 250 per 100k for white people: https://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/4#61
Common Response: "Black People Underreport Drug Use More Than White People Do"; This Is Partially Correct but Very Insufficient to Explain Drug Arrest Gap
Harrison and Hudghes 1997: among 13237 adults in the NLSY over four followups, the recanting rate (RR) for drug use was 7pp to 2pp higher for black people than for white people; this gap is not nearly high enough to explain the 2.5 times overrepresentation above
Harrison and Hudghes 1997: among 13237 adults in the NLSY over four followups, the recanting rate (RR) for drug use was 7pp to 2pp higher for black people than for white people; this gap is not nearly high enough to explain the 2.5 times overrepresentation above: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4769438257 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9243555/ https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/validity-self-reported-drug-use-survey-research-overview-and https://archives.drugabuse.gov/sites/default/files/monograph167_0.pdf#page=77 (33.6-31.4)/33.6
Inaccurate reports of drug use do not necessarily result from intentional deception. For example, adolescents may not recognize the names of drugs as listed on an assessment instrument. Recognition may depend on whether street names, slang terms, and/or chemical names are included in the definitions and may change over time as respondents become more experienced.
[W]e measured the number of substances for which adolescent clients supplied one or more inconsistent reports across three assessments conducted at program intake and at the 6- and 12-month follow-up assessments.
White et al 2014: among 454 black and 349 white men who have sex with men (usually homosexual) in Atlanta, white and black men were equally likely to use marijuana and cocaine (as detected by urine tests), but black men were less likely to report marijuana use and cocaine use; 64% of black and 91% of white marijuana users reported using; 54% of black and 84% of white cocaine users reported using; given that black people are 2.5x overrepresented in self-reported data, this would suggest the true overrepresentation is still 2.5*.64/.91=1.76x or 2.5*.54/.84=1.61x
White et al 2014: among 454 black and 349 white men who have sex with men (usually homosexual) in Atlanta, white and black men were equally likely to use marijuana and cocaine (as detected by urine tests), but black men were less likely to report marijuana use and cocaine use; 64% of black and 91% of white marijuana users reported using; 54% of black and 84% of white cocaine users reported using; given that black people are 2.5x overrepresented in self-reported data, this would suggest the true overrepresentation is still 2.5*.64/.91=1.76x or 2.5*.54/.84=1.61x: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4104302/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871614000805 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2014.02.025 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/978035987533951016/white2014.pdf
In analyses that adjusted for age, education, income, sexual orientation, and history of arrest, black MSM were less likely to report recent use of marijuana (P<0.001) and cocaine (P=0.02), but equally likely to screen positive for either drug. This discrepancy between selfreported and urine-detected drug use was explained by significantly lower sensitivity of self-report for black participants (P<0.001 for marijuana, P<0.05 for cocaine).
The model indicated a 41% lower adjusted prevalence of self-reported marijuana use among black participants. In the fully adjusted model of self-reported cocaine use, the interaction between race and age group persisted, with a similar pattern of less reported cocaine use among black participants <35 years.
The prevalence and correlates of urine-detected marijuana and cocaine use are shown in Table 4. Similar to self-reported marijuana use, urine-detected marijuana use was associated with educational attainment, annual income, and history of arrest. Urine-detected cocaine use was associated with age group, income, and history of arrest. In the fully adjusted models, black and white participants had equivalent levels of urine-detected marijuana (P = 0.78) and cocaine use (P = 0.84) (Table 6).
Harris et al 2008: among 1463 adolescents in the Adolescent Treatment Models program, the 161 black adolescents inconsistently reported drugs from one session to the next at roughly half the rate of white adolescents
Harris et al 2008: among 1463 adolescents in the Adolescent Treatment Models program, the 161 black adolescents inconsistently reported drugs from one session to the next at roughly half the rate of white adolescents: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S074054720700147X https://sci-hub.st/10.1016/j.jsat.2007.05.004 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/978038509866721321/harris2008.pdf
Blacks on average reported inconsistently on less than half the number of substances as compared with Whites (incidence rate ratio = 0.41, 95% confidence interval = 0.31 0.53).
Summary
Many conservatives claim that "black people had it better under segregation", "before civil rights", "before LBJ", or "before the welfare state". The evidence for this is weak and the evidence against it is strong.
Many conservatives claim that "black people had it better under segregation", "before civil rights", "before LBJ", or "before the welfare state". The evidence for this is weak and the evidence against it is strong.
Intergenerational Mobility: Upward Trend
Reeves and Rodrigue 2017: at each decline of income, black men have much less upward mobility than white men, but mobility is higher now than ever before
Reeves and Rodrigue 2017: at each decline of income, black men have much less upward mobility than white men, but mobility is higher now than ever before: https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-century-gap-low-economic-mobility-for-black-men-150-years-after-the-civil-war/ https://archive.ph/wip/GAENC
Reeves and Rodrigue 2017: based on a counterfactual simulation where black men had the same income mobility as white men, the average income of black men would have been 35 percent of the average income of white men by 1900; we have not yet reached this benchmark
Reeves and Rodrigue 2017: based on a counterfactual simulation where black men had the same income mobility as white men, the average income of black men would have been 35 percent of the average income of white men by 1900; we have not yet reached this benchmark: https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-century-gap-low-economic-mobility-for-black-men-150-years-after-the-civil-war/ https://archive.ph/wip/GAENC
Intergenerational Mobility: In the Long Run Since Slavery
Derenoncourt et al 2022: in 1860, the average black person owned just 1/55th of the average white person; today, the average black person owns just 1/6 of what the average white person owns
Derenoncourt et al 2022: in 1860, the average black person owned just 1/55th of the average white person; today, the average black person owns just 1/6 of what the average white person owns: https://sites.google.com/view/ellora-derenoncourt/us-inequality-data https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985378803427737610/ellencourt2022.pdf
Derenoncourt et al 2022: even if black & white people had had equal ability to build wealth, the white-black wealth ratio would be 3x today, because freedmen were so deeply poor
Derenoncourt et al 2022: even if black & white people had had equal ability to build wealth, the white-black wealth ratio would be 3x today, because freedmen were so deeply poor: https://sites.google.com/view/ellora-derenoncourt/us-inequality-data https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985378803427737610/ellencourt2022.pdf
Derenoncourt et al 2022: 1st: flow-based policies, which raise black income growth, saving, and capital gains rates, are likely to have a small effect unless they elevate black income/saving/gains over white rates; the authors estimate that even if capital gains, savings rates, and income growth were equal for white and black people, it would take until 2200 (!) for black income to equal white income -- at which point that white-black wealth ratio would still be 1.88x!
Derenoncourt et al 2022: 1st: flow-based policies, which raise black income growth, saving, and capital gains rates, are likely to have a small effect unless they elevate black income/saving/gains over white rates; the authors estimate that even if capital gains, savings rates, and income growth were equal for white and black people, it would take until 2200 (!) for black income to equal white income -- at which point that white-black wealth ratio would still be 1.88x! https://sites.google.com/view/ellora-derenoncourt/us-inequality-data https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985378803427737610/ellencourt2022.pdf
Derenoncourt et al 2022: 2nd: Stock-based policies: Classic reparations. A one-time payment of $267k per person to each descendant of enslaved people would instantly reduce the white-black wealth ratio to 1.4x! But this fix would be very temporary. Black people have lower income, capital gains, and savings rates If unchanged, the wealth ratio would grow to >3x after 120y If ~halved, the ratio would grow to 2x after 240y If {capital gains and savings rates} were equal (but not income), the ratio would stabilize at ~1.1x
Derenoncourt et al 2022: 2nd: Stock-based policies: Classic reparations. A one-time payment of $267k per person to each descendant of enslaved people would instantly reduce the white-black wealth ratio to 1.4x! But this fix would be very temporary. Black people have lower income, capital gains, and savings rates If unchanged, the wealth ratio would grow to >3x after 120y If ~halved, the ratio would grow to 2x after 240y If {capital gains and savings rates} were equal (but not income), the ratio would stabilize at ~1.1x: https://sites.google.com/view/ellora-derenoncourt/us-inequality-data https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985378803427737610/ellencourt2022.pdf
Intergenerational Mobility: Explaining the Recent Flatline of Mobility: Society Got Less Equal!
Manduca 2018: from 1965 to 2015, the median black family's income rose from the 25th percentile to the 35th %ile; these relative gains were nearly exactly negated by overall increasing income inequality: incomes at the 35th %ile dropped from 70% to 50% of the mean
Manduca 2018: from 1965 to 2015, the median black family's income rose from the 25th percentile to the 35th %ile; these relative gains were nearly exactly negated by overall increasing income inequality: incomes at the 35th %ile dropped from 70% to 50% of the mean: https://sociologicalscience.com/articles-v5-8-182/ https://sociologicalscience.com/download/vol-5/march/SocSci_v5_182to205.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/851703489842380810/manduca2018.pdf
Literacy in the Long Run
NCES NAAL 2007: according to the US Census HSUS, self-reported literacy rates for people over 14 years old were 98% for native white, 87% for foreign white, and 77% for black people
NCES NAAL 2007: according to the US Census HSUS, self-reported literacy rates for people over 14 years old were 98% for native white, 87% for foreign white, and 77% for black people: https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp https://archive.ph/6x2g
Unemployment
the unemployment rate of black people has always been about 2x that of white people
Single Motherhood and Extra-Marital Birth
single motherhood has always been higher for black people
extramarital births have always been higher for black people
extramarital births have always been higher for black people:
Todo Review Reread XXX
Collins and Wanamaker 2017
Johnson 2016: the upward mobility of black children born into the national bottom 50%, as compared to white children born into the national bottom 50%, has substantially increased since 1945
Johnson 2016: the upward mobility of black children born into the national bottom 50%, as compared to white children born into the national bottom 50%, has substantially increased since 1945: https://inequality.stanford.edu/news-events/center-news/can-schools-level-playing-field https://gsppi.berkeley.edu/~ruckerj/Johnson_EconMobility_FedRsv.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982381966093607043/johnson2016.pdf tau represents the percentile increase required to be classified as "upwardly mobile"; tau=0 means "higher percentile than parents", tau=0.2 means "20% higher than parents"
bottom half of this
todo
Hacker 2020: in 1860, an estimated 3,953,760 (~4 million) black people were enslaved in the US; by 1865, an estimated 9,797,728 (~10 million) black people had ever been enslaved in the USA, who worked a cumulative 410,304 hours of forced labor
Census Bureau 1864: an additional 2297+2504+1651+917=7369 black slaves were held by white and Native American people in territory controlled by the Choctaw, Cherokee, Cree, and Chickasaw peoples
Census Bureau 1864: an additional 2297+2504+1651+917=7369 black slaves were held by white and Native American people in territory controlled by the Choctaw, Cherokee, Cree, and Chickasaw peoples: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1864/dec/1860a.html https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/population/1860a-02.pdf
Census Bureau 1864: Census results from 1860 show 3,953,760 enslaved black people and just 487,970 free black people; there were 8.1x as many black slaves as black freedmen, and just 11.0% of black people were free; and 26,957,471
Census Bureau 1864: Census results from 1860 show 3,953,760 enslaved black people and just 487,970 free black people; there were 8.1x as many black slaves as black freedmen, and just 11.0% of black people were free; and 26,957,471: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1864/dec/1860a.html https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/population/1860a-02.pdf
Black Immigrants Are a Significant but Small Proportion of Current Black Americans
Pew 2022: in 2022, 8 in 10 black people were 3rd generation or longer residents in America
Promises Made
Clinton Fisk 1865, assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, speaking at the August 1865 State Convention of Colored Men in Tennesse
Clinton Fisk 1865, assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, speaking at the August 1865 State Convention of Colored Men in Tennesse: https://omeka.coloredconventions.org/items/show/522 https://omeka.coloredconventions.org/files/original/ebbb1a5b7b7c4893be155312338cb820.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/988587438106632233/fisk1865.pdf
I am your friend, sent by the Government to aid you; and, by the blessing of God, I will never shrink from discharging my duty. The passing away of slavery has opened a new era, and it becomes necessary that the Government should do something to aid you in passing from slavery to freedom, for the good of the white race as well as yours. And therefore, the Freedmen's Bureau was established[.] [...] They must not only have freedom but homes of their own, thirty or forty acres, with mules, cottages, and school houses, etc. That is the picture for the future. I shall move in it just as quickly as possible. I would like to settle 10,000 before the first of next January.
Failure of Immediate Land Reform
Oubre 1976: brief summary of the failure of land reform: in March 1865, Congress instructed the Freedmen's Bureau to grant 40 acres of confiscated or abandoned land (usually from slavers) to freedmen; by April 1866, most of that land had been restored to its former owners or sold to Northern businessmen
Oubre 1976: brief summary of the failure of land reform: in March 1865, Congress instructed the Freedmen's Bureau to grant 40 acres of confiscated or abandoned land (usually from slavers) to freedmen; by April 1866, most of that land had been restored to its former owners or sold to Northern businessmen: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4231584
In March 1865, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands to assist freedmen in making the difficult transition from slavery to freedom. Congress instructed the Bureau to rent forty acres of confiscated or abandoned land to each freedman family. By April 1866, however, most of the confiscated and abandoned lands had been restored to former owners or sold to northern businessmen. Therefore, in order to make land available to the freedmen, Congress enacted the Southern Homestead Act in June 1866, restricting all remaining public lands in five southern states (approximately forty-six million acres) to entry for homestead only. To assure that freedmen and loyal whites would have first choice of the public lands the act restricted entry to these classes exclusively until January 1, 1867, and until June 1868, no entry could be made for more than forty acres of double minimum land, that is, land within six miles of a railroad or navigable stream, or eighty acres of minimum land. Moreover, the act provided that until June 1868 the homesteader would only pay a two dollar filing fee at the time of entry, and would not have to pay the five dollar registration fee until his patent was issued five years later.
Engs 1979: Southern landowners regained almost all of the land they had claimed before the war; under pressure from Johnson and pro-capital Northern politicians, the Freedmen's Bureau was transformed from a protector of freedmen land rights to an enforcer of the plantation wage system
Engs 1979: Southern landowners regained almost all of the land they had claimed before the war; under pressure from Johnson and pro-capital Northern politicians, the Freedmen's Bureau was transformed from a protector of freedmen land rights to an enforcer of the plantation wage system: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/918168073 https://archive.org/details/ncis00robe https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/988573131453116416/engs1979.pdf
Throughout the South, freedmen were required to make labor contracts with their former owners, and local Bureau agents were charged to enforce the terms of these agreements. Black refugees from rural counties were returned to their home plantations despite proof that they would be subject to mistreatment. Rather than fostering black independence, the Bureau became an agency to assist Southern whites in perpetuating black subordination. Agents who resisted these perversions of the Bureau's purpose, like Wilder, or Saxton in South Carolina, were dismissed and replaced by officers more amenable to the president and his southern allies.
Failure of Obtaining Back Pay
Oubre 1978: by 1900, in the Deep South, 19.1% of black farm-operators owned their farms; 58.9% of white farm-operators owned their farms
Oubre 1978: by 1900, in the Deep South, 19.1% of black farm-operators owned their farms; 58.9% of white farm-operators owned their farms: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/784447350 https://archive.org/details/isbn_0807102989/page/n5/mode/2up
Failure of Homesteading Acts
Oubre 1978: by 1900, in the Deep South, 19.1% of black farm-operators owned their farms; 58.9% of white farm-operators owned their farms
Oubre 1978: by 1900, in the Deep South, 19.1% of black farm-operators owned their farms; 58.9% of white farm-operators owned their farms: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/784447350 https://archive.org/details/isbn_0807102989/page/n5/mode/2up
In fact, throughout the entire South in 1900, 25.2 percent of the black farmers owned their own farms. The corresponding figure for whtie farm owners is 62.9 percent. When one considers that there were relatively few black land owners in 1865, this represents a consdierable increase in thirty-five years of freedom.
Canaday Reback Stowe 2015: among homesteaders on the 1866 Southern Homestead Act, neither white or black homesteaders were more likely to succeed (model 3); about 40% of homesteaders succeeded in getting land rights after 5 years; white homesteaders were poorer than the white population, while black homesteaders were richer than the black population
Canaday Reback Stowe 2015: among homesteaders on the 1866 Southern Homestead Act, neither white or black homesteaders were more likely to succeed (model 3); about 40% of homesteaders succeeded in getting land rights after 5 years; white homesteaders were poorer than the white population, while black homesteaders were richer than the black population: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1007/s12114-015-9212-7 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s12114-015-9212-7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/988323641940901888/canaday2015.pdf "Louisiana is the only state for which unsuccessful homesteadentry records are available electronically" model 4 examines the local vs non-local question, which is not pertinent
Contemporary writers estimated a settler would need $600 to $1000 to relocate, register, sustain themselves and establish a farm (Deverell 1988).
Hiring
Pager 2009: black people with identical qualifications and virtually identical in-person interviews are much less likely to get called back for a job opening
Pager 2009: black people with identical qualifications and virtually identical in-person interviews are much less likely to get called back for a job opening: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/000312240907400505 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/000312240907400505
Quillian 2017: racial hiring discrimination in employment for black and Hispanic people has remained roughly the same since the 1990's
Quillian 2017: racial hiring discrimination in employment for black and Hispanic people has remained roughly the same since the 1990's: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/09/11/1706255114 https://sci-hub.se/10.1073/pnas.1706255114
Mortgages
black people are targeted for high-risk, high-cost mortgages
Marriage
black women have a harder time marrying due to the mass incarceration and homicide of black men
Causal Evidence: Desegregation
court-mandated desegregation increases black intergenerational mobility up to 25% without decreasing white mobility
court-mandated desegregation increases black intergenerational mobility up to 25% without decreasing white mobility: https://gsppi.berkeley.edu/~ruckerj/Johnson_EconMobility_FedRsv.pdf
Correlational Evidence: Against Positive Enclave Effects
Xie and Gough 2011: among 814 Asian respondents to the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, residential enclaves (have same ethnicity) correlated with no significant effect on wages but workplace enclaves (speak same language) correlated with an 18% decrease of wages
Xie and Gough 2011: among 814 Asian respondents to the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, residential enclaves (have same ethnicity) correlated with no significant effect on wages but workplace enclaves (speak same language) correlated with an 18% decrease of wages: https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/48/4/1293/169732/Ethnic-Enclaves-and-the-Earnings-of-Immigrants https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s13524-011-0058-8 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982375162055905360/xie2011.pdf
We observe that the enclave variable is statistically significant in explaining earnings under only one operationalization the workplace measure and this estimate points in a direction that contradicts the enclave thesis, thus refuting Hypothesis 1. Instead of being positive, the estimate is negative: 0.176. This estimate indicates that Asian immigrants working in settings where non-English languages are spoken earn about 18% less, on average, than other Asian workers. As an example, for the average male Chinese worker, this negative effect translates into a $3.49/hour penalty on earnings.9
Xie and Gough 2011: among 941 Hispanic respondents to the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, residential enclaves (have same ethnicity) correlated with no significant effect on wages but workplace enclaves (speak same language) correlated with an 11% decrease of wages
Xie and Gough 2011: among 941 Hispanic respondents to the 2003 New Immigrant Survey, residential enclaves (have same ethnicity) correlated with no significant effect on wages but workplace enclaves (speak same language) correlated with an 11% decrease of wages: https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/48/4/1293/169732/Ethnic-Enclaves-and-the-Earnings-of-Immigrants https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s13524-011-0058-8 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982375162055905360/xie2011.pdf
Derenoncourt 2021: instrumental variable: higher-than-expected black movement to a Northern commuting zone predicts lower upward mobility for black men born from 1978-1983; this does not result from selection effects or deindustrialization, but may result from observably higher white flight, segregation, resultant crime, and policing
Derenoncourt 2021: instrumental variable: higher-than-expected black movement to a Northern commuting zone predicts lower upward mobility for black men born from 1978-1983; this does not result from selection effects or deindustrialization, but may result from observably higher white flight, segregation, resultant crime, and policing: https://sites.google.com/view/ellora-derenoncourt/us-inequality-data https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985383471780347914/derenoncourt_2021.pdf
What is more likely is that a restructur- ing of economic activity within Great Migration CZs left Black families in the urban core without adequate opportunities while white families potentially followed jobs by moving to growing suburban areas, a finding in line with the historical and sociological literature on this topic.
Conspicious Consumption (Consumerism, Jewelry, Bling)
black and Hispanic people spend more on conspicious consumption than income- and demographic-comparable white people (by 26% and 23% more), but these differences disappear when controlling for median income of a person's race within their state: this suggests that conspicious consumption functions in all races as an ingroup signalling mechanism
black and Hispanic people spend more on conspicious consumption than income- and demographic-comparable white people (by 26% and 23% more), but these differences disappear when controlling for median income of a person's race within their state: this suggests that conspicious consumption functions in all races as an ingroup signalling mechanism: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/conspicuous-consumption-and-race-who-spends-more-on-what/ https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/124/2/425/1905068 https://sci-hub.se/10.1162/qjec.2009.124.2.425 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/728661191437844521/charles2009.pdf
The results are shown in Table VIII. Column (1) displays the results from row (6) of Table II in which we do not control for features of reference group income distribution. Without reference group income controls, observationally equivalent Black and Hispanic maleheaded households consume 26 and 23 percent more on visible goods, respectively, than do Whites.
In the third column we add, for each individual, the average income of their race/state reference group and exclude the state fixed effects. This regression shows dramatically that our control for reference group income explains nearly the entire gap in spending across races. Both the Black and Hispanic point estimates are quantitatively tiny and statistically indistinguishable from zero.
Abramitzky et al 2021: as a group, children of immigrants achieve more upward mobility than the children of U.S.-born fathers; that the mobility advantage of the children of immigrants is just as strong today as it was in the past. What s more, some of the immigrant groups that politicians accused long ago of having little to contribute to the economy the Irish, Italians, and Portuguese actually achieved the highest rates of upward mobility
Abramitzky et al 2021: as a group, children of immigrants achieve more upward mobility than the children of U.S.-born fathers; that the mobility advantage of the children of immigrants is just as strong today as it was in the past. What s more, some of the immigrant groups that politicians accused long ago of having little to contribute to the economy the Irish, Italians, and Portuguese actually achieved the highest rates of upward mobility: https://time.com/6182715/immigrants-children-us-mobility/ https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20191586 https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.20191586 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985386579218542632/abramitzky2021.pdf
Not All Asian People
Asian-American economic success is very mixed by ethnicity
Recent Immigrants
73% of Asian adults in the US are immigrants (were born in another country), so historical inequities affected them much less
73% of Asian adults in the US are immigrants (were born in another country), so historical inequities affected them much less: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/08/key-facts-about-asian-americans/ The modern immigration wave from Asia has accounted for one-quarter of all immigrants who have arrived in the U.S. since 1965. Today 59% of the U.S. Asian population was born in another country. That share rises to 73% among adult Asians.
Formal Comparison of Black and Asian Endowments: No Asian Advantage Beyond Starting Endowments
Bogan and Darity 2008: todo reread axxx see below
todo
Racial Discrimination in Voting
Chen 2019: Racial Disparities in Voting Wait Times: Evidence from Smartphone Data
Chen 2019: Racial Disparities in Voting Wait Times: Evidence from Smartphone Data: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-data-show-voters-in-black-neighborhoods-wait-longer1/ https://www.nber.org/papers/w26487
Relative to entirely-white neighborhoods, residents of entirely-black neighborhoods waited 29% longer to vote and were 74% more likely to spend more than 30 minutes at their polling place. This disparity holds whe>n comparing predominantly white and black polling places within the same states and counties, and survives numerous robustness and placebo tests.
Air Pollution Exposure by Race
Kioumourtzoglou et al 2016
Bell and Ebisu 2012: black, Hispanic, Asian, and socioeconomically marginalized people have significantly more exposure to pollutants
Air Pollution Mortality
Di et al 2017: black people had significantly (1.2x) higher risk of death from marginal particulate matter than the overall population; NatAm, Hispanic, and Asian people had significantly lower (~0.97x) risk of death from marginal ozone than the overall population
Di et al 2017: the above results in black people dying at three times higher rates from particulate matter than the overall population
Zeger et al 2008: among recipients of Medicare in urban centers, a 10-microgram per cubic meter increase long-term exposure to particulate matter significantly increased the mortality rate by 6.8% in the East and 13.2% in the Center
Zeger et al 2008: among recipients of Medicare in urban centers, a 10-microgram per cubic meter increase long-term exposure to particulate matter significantly increased the mortality rate by 6.8% in the East and 13.2% in the Center: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.11449 https://sci-hub.se/10.1289/ehp.11449 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982347225374027846/zeger2008.pdf
Toxic Waste Site Exposure
Bullard et al 2007: black people, Hispanic people, and Asian people are much more likely (roughly 2x) to live near toxic waste sites than are white people
Bullard et al 2007: race shows a higher correlation (higher ratios) than socioeconomic conditions with living in a toxic waste site host neighborhood, suggesting that racial discrimination/segregation plays a larger role in waste site location than economic discrimination/segregation
Industrial Facility Exposure
Starbuck and White 2016: people of color are 1.7x more likely than white people to live within one mile of a Risk Management Program (RMP) industrial facility; this represents 10% of people of color and 6% of white people
Starbuck and White 2016: people of color are 1.7x more likely than white people to live within one mile of a Risk Management Program (RMP) industrial facility; this represents 10% of people of color and 6% of white people: https://www.foreffectivegov.org/shadow-of-danger/ https://www.foreffectivegov.org/sites/default/files/shadow-of-danger-highrespdf.pdf
There are over 12,500 hazardous chemical facilities in the U.S. reporting to the Environmental Protection Agency s (EPA) Risk Management Program (RMP). These facilities use or store high enough quantities of extremely dangerous chemicals that they must submit a risk plan for responding to chemical disasters. Some facilities are so dangerous that a major incident could impact communities several miles away.20 However, those living near chemical facilities face the greatest dangers. Nearly 23 million U.S. residents 7.5 percent of the total population live within one mile of an RMP facility. These fenceline communities would be hardest hit during a chemical catastrophe and would have the least amount of time to escape.
Causes of Worse Environmental Health
Nardone et al 2020: historically redlined areas saw significantly higher emergency room visits for asthma, which suggests that redlined areas have worse air pollution or other environmental determinants of respiratory health
Bravo et al 2016: higher current segregation among racial minority groups ("Racial Isolation") is significantly associated with higher exposure to particulate matter, but not ozone, especially for non-Hispanic black people
Bravo et al 2016: higher current segregation among racial minority groups ("Racial Isolation") is significantly associated with higher exposure to particulate matter, but not ozone, especially for non-Hispanic black people: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412016301386 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.envint.2016.04.008 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982345447538561064/bravo2016.pdf racial isolation (RI), a measure of the extent to which minority racial/ethnic group members are exposed to only one another
Reported Racial Discrimination Is Not Just Neighborhood Effects
Gee 2008: among 1503 Chinese people in Los Angeles, reported racial discrimination correlated signifcantly with worse reported health, even after controlling for several neighborhood and individual variables, including mortgage discrimination against Asian people (modern redlining)
Gee 2008: among 1503 Chinese people in Los Angeles, reported racial discrimination correlated signifcantly with worse reported health, even after controlling for several neighborhood and individual variables, including mortgage discrimination against Asian people (modern redlining): https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.98.Supplement_1.S48 https://sci-hub.se/10.2105/AJPH.98.Supplement_1.S48 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982368292972945478/gee2008.pdf
Racial Discrimination Predicts Greater Cigarette Smoking
Parker et al 2016: experienced racism positively correlates with cigarette smoking among black people as a coping behavior
Parker et al 2016: experienced racism positively correlates with cigarette smoking among black people as a coping behavior: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10826084.2016.1228678 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/10826084.2016.1228678 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/975939991404433438/parker2016.pdf After adjusting for having an emotional response to discrimination, health care and workplace discrimination, age, education, household income, and being married, males who had a physical response to discrimination (e.g., upset stomach or headache) had higher odds of cigarette use (odds ratio (OR): 1.95, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.15-3.30) than men who did not have a physical response to discrimination.
homosexual men (gays) have slightly larger cocks/dicks/penises than straights
homosexual men (gays) have slightly larger cocks/dicks/penises than straights: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1018780108597 https://sci-hub.se/10.1023/A:1018780108597 it's not actually significant and almost certainly results from sample bias but it is very funny
More Stigma, More Mortality
Hatzenbuehler et al 2020: among people with a same-sex partner in the last year (very likely to be gay), higher reported structural stigma was associated with 1.95x higher risk of all-cause mortality, after controlling for age, race, gender, income, and education
Hate Crimes Fell After Hate Crime Laws and Nondiscrimination Laws Were Enacted
Levy and Levy 2017: after states enacted hate crime laws and employer non-discrimination laws that protected queer people, reported anti-queer hate crimes fell significantly (includes a number of controls and some consideration of the reporting-bias issue)
Levy and Levy 2017: after states enacted hate crime laws and employer non-discrimination laws that protected queer people, reported anti-queer hate crimes fell significantly (includes a number of controls and some consideration of the reporting-bias issue): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886725/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X16303222 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.06.008 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/989003765552140328/levy2016.pdf
Over all, our findings thus far are generally supportive of H2. We predict that pro-equality policies will reduce reported incidence of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and this seems to be the case with hate crime and employment nondiscrimination laws including sexual orientation. Both policies Granger cause reductions in reported hate crimes, indicative of potential positive externalities. In contrast, we reject H1 e at least in its causal form. Constitutional bans are positively correlated with reported hate crimes, but this relationship is explained by the many controls we include in our model.
Terminology
SOCE = sexual orientation change efforts
SOCE = sexual orientation change efforts
Anecdotes
Anne Paulk is the most famous example of an ex-lesbian; as of 2020, she still supports conversion therapy because of her faith
Anne Paulk is the most famous example of an ex-lesbian; as of 2020, she still supports conversion therapy because of her faith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Paulk https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2020/01/31/conversion-therapy-must-choice-people-homosexual-lgbtq-desires/4619391002/
The Bible has made clear that all humans are made in the image of God male and female. It does not at all specify that homosexual identity is part of that blessed image.
her husband, John Paulk, who founded the ex-gay "Love Won Out" ministry simularly identified as ex-gay; in 2013, he divorced her, returned to homosexuality, and disavowed the ex-gay movement
her husband, John Paulk, who founded the ex-gay "Love Won Out" ministry simularly identified as ex-gay; in 2013, he divorced her, returned to homosexuality, and disavowed the ex-gay movement: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/life-as-ex-ex-gay-paulk-108090
I was in denial. It wasn t in fact true, any of it. Worse than being wrong, it was harmful to many people and caused me years of pain in my own life. Which is why I have this to say to the Rick Perrys of the world: You don t understand this issue. At all.
Consensus: Apa Report
APA report summary on changing sexual behavior: no credible evidence that SOCE durably changes a large portion of people's sexual behavior
APA report summary on changing sexual behavior: no credible evidence that SOCE durably changes a large portion of people's sexual behavior: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexual-orientation https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/785317667203973160/therapeutic-response.pdf
The limited number of rigorous early studies and complete lack of rigorous recent prospective research on SOCE limits claims for the efficacy and safety of SOCE. Within the early group of studies, there are a small number of rigorous studies of SOCE, and those focus on the use of aversive treatments. These studies show that enduring change to an individual s sexual orientation is uncommon and that a very small minority of people in these studies showed any credible evidence of reduced same-sex sexual attraction, though some show lessened physiological arousal to all sexual stimuli.
APA report: only one study, Tanner 1974, compared a treated experimental group against a untreated control group; said study (n=16) found no change in same-sex behavior over the next 8 weeks
APA report: only one study, Tanner 1974, compared a treated experimental group against a untreated control group; said study (n=16) found no change in same-sex behavior over the next 8 weeks: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexual-orientation https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/785317667203973160/therapeutic-response.pdf
Only one of the experiments that we identified compared treatment outcomes against the outcomes for an untreated control group. Tanner (1974) examined change in sexual arousal among 8 men receiving electric shock therapy. Tanner found that physiological arousal to male stimuli in the laboratory had declined at the 8-week follow-up, when scores among the 8 men in the treatment were compared with those of the 8 men in a control group. Changes were not achieved for all of the men, and there were no differences between the experimental and control groups in the frequency of same-sex sexual behavior.
APA report: meta-study found that if SOCE if effective, it's likely because it reduces overall sex drive
APA report: SOCE lab experiments are often not replicable in SOCE real-world experiments
McConaghy 1976: todo xxx
Efficacy: Spitzer 2001
Spitzer 2001 study
^story of Spitzer's involvement in validating conversion therapy
^story of Spitzer's involvement in validating conversion therapy: https://prospect.org/civil-rights/so-called-ex-gay-life/
This spring, I visited Spitzer at his home in Princeton. He ambled toward the door in a walker. Frail but sharp-witted, Spitzer suffers from Parkinson's disease. "It's a bummer," he said. I told Spitzer that Nicolosi had asked me to participate in the 2001 study and recount my success in therapy, but that I never called him. "I actually had great difficulty finding participants," Spitzer said. "In all the years of doing ex-gay therapy, you'd think Nicolosi would have been able to provide more success stories. He only sent me nine patients.
Spitzer was drawn to the topic of ex-gay therapy because it was controversial-"I was always attracted to controversy"-but was troubled by how the study was received. He did not want to suggest that gay people should pursue ex-gay therapy. His goal was to determine whether the counterfactual-the claim that no one had ever changed his or her sexual orientation through therapy-was true.
I asked about the criticisms leveled at him. "In retrospect, I have to admit I think the critiques are largely correct," he said. "The findings can be considered evidence for what those who have undergone ex-gay therapy say about it, but nothing more." He said he spoke with the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior about writing a retraction, but the editor declined.
^in 2013, Spitzer recanted the findings of his study
^in 2013, Spitzer recanted the findings of his study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-012-9966-y https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10508-012-9966-y
The Fatal Flaw in the Study: There Was No Way to Judge the Credibility of Subject Reports of Change in Sexual Orientation[.] I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the participants' reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the participants' accounts of change were valid.
Efficacy: Byrd 2002 Metastudy
Byrd (reparative therapy practitioner) 2002 meta-study argues that sexual reorientation therapy is effective
Byrd (reparative therapy practitioner) 2002 meta-study argues that sexual reorientation therapy is effective: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2466/pr0.2002.90.3c.1139 https://sci-hub.se/10.2466/pr0.2002.90.3c.1139
^ apa 2009 response
^ apa 2009 response: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/sexual-orientation https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/785317667203973160/therapeutic-response.pdf
A meta-analytic review of 14 research articles (Byrd & Nicolosi, 2002) is not discussed in this report. The review suffers from significant methodological shortcomings and deviations from recommended meta-analytic practice (see, e.g., Durlak, Meerson, & Ewell Foster, 2003; Lipsey & Wilson, 2001) that preclude reliable conclusions being drawn from it. However, studies that were included in the meta-analysis and were published in refereed journals between 1960 and the present are included and described in the current review.
Outcomes: Psychological Harms
trans individuals who recall exposure in trans conversion therapy report significantly higher rates of suicidality, pyschological distress, and illicit drug use
Riger et al 2016: more-homosexual women reported significantly higher childhood masculinity and adulthood masculinity (such that full-lesbians rated themselves as more masculine than feminine) and were rated by observers as more masculine (such that full-lesbians were rated as more masculine than feminine)
Riger et al 2016: more-homosexual women reported significantly higher childhood masculinity and adulthood masculinity (such that full-lesbians rated themselves as more masculine than feminine) and were rated by observers as more masculine (such that full-lesbians were rated as more masculine than feminine): https://doi.apa.org/record/2015-48448-001 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/pspp0000077 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/743857690068910110/rieger2015.pdf N1 = 186, N2 = 345, N3 = 273, Ntotal = 804
Percent of Population
Herman et al 2022: 0.52% of US adults identify as transgender, including 1.43% of those 13-17 and 0.32% of those over 65
Herman et al 2018: .66% of Americans 18-24 identify as transgender
Baker 2019: 0.55% of Americans in the BRFSS identified as transgender; they were more likely to report poor mental and physical health
about 0.4% of Americans identify as transgender
By Gender: Surveys -- Roughly Equal Female:male
trans men (FtM), trans women (MtF), and nonbinary respondents who identified as trans were equally common in the 2015 USTS
trans men (FtM), trans women (MtF), and nonbinary respondents who identified as trans were equally common in the 2015 USTS: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
By Gender: Legal Gender -- Roughly Equal Female:male
among every individual in Sweden with a gender incongruence diagnosis from 2005-2015, 47.9% were legally male (FtM) and 52.1% female (MtF)
among every individual in Sweden with a gender incongruence diagnosis from 2005-2015, 47.9% were legally male (FtM) and 52.1% female (MtF): https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080 http://sci-hub.se/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080
By Gender: Referalls -- Roughly 4X Female:male
Tavistock 2019: among gender identity referrals in the UK, patients assigned female at birth (FtM) were about 1-3x more common than male at birth (MtF)
Tavistock 2019: among gender identity referrals in the UK, patients assigned female at birth (FtM) were about 1-3x more common than male at birth (MtF): https://tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/about-us/news/stories/referrals-gender-identity-development-service-gids-level-2018-19/
Kaltiala 2019: among gender identity referrals in four countries, patients assigned female at birth (FtM) were more common
Kaltiala 2019: among gender identity referrals in four countries, patients assigned female at birth (FtM) were more common: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08039488.2019.1667429 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/08039488.2019.1667429 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/747881546404331590/kaltiala2019.pdf
An increase in female:male ratio among those referred to the child and adolescent GIDSs was seen across the countries from 2010 to 2017. Finland was distinguished with a higher female:male ratio among the gender-referred minors than in the other countries studied (Figure 3). Among children there seemed to be relatively more boys in Finland (female:male ratio 0.3) and the UK (0.6), and an even sex distribution was seen in Denmark (1.1), Norway (1.0) and Sweden (1.0), but none of the pairwise differences was statistically significant. Among adolescents, there was a preponderance of females with female:male ratios of 4.1 in Denmark, 7.1 in Finland, 1.7 in Norway, 3.2 in Sweden and 2.5 in the UK (pairwise differences between countries were statistically significant at level p < .001 except Sweden vs. UK and Denmark vs. Sweden at level p < .05).
By Sexuality: Very Queer
41% of crossdressers, 23% of trans men, 19% of trans women, and 2% of non-bonary people described themselves as "straight" or "heterosexual"
41% of crossdressers, 23% of trans men, 19% of trans women, and 2% of non-bonary people described themselves as "straight" or "heterosexual": https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
Pronouns
the vast majority of trans people request he/she/they pronouns
Military Status
trans people are 1.9x more likely to have military service than the general populace
trans people are 1.9x more likely to have military service than the general populace: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
Homelessness
USTS 2015: 30% of transgender people experienced homelessness at one point in their life; 12% of transgender people experienced homelessness in the past year due to their gender identity
USTS 2015: 30% of transgender people experienced homelessness at one point in their life; 12% of transgender people experienced homelessness in the past year due to their gender identity: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
CAP 2018: 20% to 40% of the homeless youth population (either with an adult or without) are LGBT
CAP 2018: 20% to 40% of the homeless youth population (either with an adult or without) are LGBT: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gay-and-transgender-youth-homelessness-by-the-numbers/
Proportion of Adults Who Know Trans People
of US adults willing to talk about sexual topics, 2% know a trans person in the family, 17% know a trans person outside the family, 50% don't know a trans person personally
Gender Is Sex at Birth
Pew June 2021: 56% say gender is determined by sex at birth; 41% say gender can be different than sex at birth
Pronouns
Pew June 2021: 48% say uncomfortable using gender-neutral pronouns; 50% say comfortable
Ipsos Jan 2018
Polling on Mental Illness
2017: of US adults willing to talk about sexual topics, 39% say trans is a choice (43% of men, 36% of women), 9% say trans is a mental illness (11% of men, 6% of women)
belief by country on whether transgender is natural and on whether transgender is a mental illness
belief by country on whether transgender is natural and on whether transgender is a mental illness: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/global-attitudes-toward-transgender-people https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-01/transgender_global_data_writeup_01.22.18.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/744369510106005655/ipsos_report_-_transgender_global_data_01.29.18.pdf representative samples: `Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland,Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United States` nonrepresentative samples: `Brazil, China, Ecuador,India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey`
Polling on Cultural Acceptance / Sin
belief by country on whether transgender is violating their culture or is a sin
belief by country on whether transgender is violating their culture or is a sin: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/global-attitudes-toward-transgender-people https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-01/transgender_global_data_writeup_01.22.18.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/744369510106005655/ipsos_report_-_transgender_global_data_01.29.18.pdf representative samples: `Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland,Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United States` nonrepresentative samples: `Brazil, China, Ecuador,India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey`
Polling on Protections for Trans People
belief by country on increased protections for transgender people
belief by country on increased protections for transgender people: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/global-attitudes-toward-transgender-people https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-01/transgender_global_data_writeup_01.22.18.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/744369510106005655/ipsos_report_-_transgender_global_data_01.29.18.pdf representative samples: `Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland,Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United States` nonrepresentative samples: `Brazil, China, Ecuador,India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey`
belief by country on whether trans people should be able to serve in the military
belief by country on whether trans people should be able to serve in the military: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/global-attitudes-toward-transgender-people https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-01/transgender_global_data_writeup_01.22.18.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/744369510106005655/ipsos_report_-_transgender_global_data_01.29.18.pdf representative samples: `Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland,Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United States` nonrepresentative samples: `Brazil, China, Ecuador,India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey`
Bathrooms
belief by country on whether trans people should be able to use their identified-with sex's bathroom:
belief by country on whether trans people should be able to use their identified-with sex's bathroom:: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/global-attitudes-toward-transgender-people https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-01/transgender_global_data_writeup_01.22.18.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/744369510106005655/ipsos_report_-_transgender_global_data_01.29.18.pdf representative samples: `Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland,Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United States` nonrepresentative samples: `Brazil, China, Ecuador,India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey`
Adoption
belief by country on whether trans people should be able to adopt
belief by country on whether trans people should be able to adopt: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/global-attitudes-toward-transgender-people https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-01/transgender_global_data_writeup_01.22.18.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/744369510106005655/ipsos_report_-_transgender_global_data_01.29.18.pdf representative samples: `Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland,Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United States` nonrepresentative samples: `Brazil, China, Ecuador,India, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Turkey`
Surgery
Ipsos Jan 2018: 18% of Americans and 22% of medium/high-income country residents disagree that trans people should be allowed to have gender reassignment surgery; 71% of Americans and 66% of medium/high-income country residents agree
Children
Ipsos Jan 2018: 41% of Americans and 38% of medium/high-income country residents worry about exposing children to trans people; 51% of Americans and 51% of medium/high-income country residents agree
Proportion Dating a Trans Person
of US adults willing to talk about sexual topics, 4% have dated a trans person (5% of men, 2% of women), 3% have fucked a trans person in the last 12 months (5% of men, 3% of women)
Proportion Willing to Date a Trans Person
of US adults willing to talk about sexual topics who have not dated a trans person in the last year, 17% are open to dating a trans man (14% of men, 21% of women), 16% are open to dating a trans woman (17% of men, 16% of women), and 18% are open to dating a nonbinary (16% of men, 19% of women)
of US adults willing to talk about sexual topics who have not dated a trans person in the last year, 17% are open to dating a trans man (14% of men, 21% of women), 16% are open to dating a trans woman (17% of men, 16% of women), and 18% are open to dating a nonbinary (16% of men, 19% of women): https://today.yougov.com/topics/relationships/articles-reports/2017/05/17/21-americans-believe-identifying-transgender-menta https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/699268669943054386/trans_issues.pdf
96.7% of straight men won't date trans people, 98.2% of straight women, 88.5% of gay men, 71.2% of gay women, and 48.3% of bisexual-queer-nonbinary people
Self-Reported Rating of Passing / Clocking / Attractiveness
most trans people report that people could not usually tell that they were trans
most trans people report that people could not usually tell that they were trans: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
Age of Trans Feelings
most trans people felt that their gender was "wrong" before 20
Transition Status: Usa: Overall
most trans people have transitioned, but more trans men (FtM) than trans women (MtF)
most trans people have transitioned, but more trans men (FtM) than trans women (MtF): https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
Transition Status: Usa: Afab
35% of trans men do not desire phalloplasty
79% of AFAB nonbinary do not want a phalloplasty:
Transition Status: Usa: Amab
12% of trans women do not desire vaginoplasty
59% of AMAB nonbinary do not want a vaginoplasty
Transition Status: Sweden: HRT vs SRS
Branstrom et al 2020, using data on every individual in Sweden from 2005-2015, found that (among those with a gender incongruence diagnosis) 38.0% had had gender-confirming surgery and 70.4% were on cross-sex hormones
Branstrom et al 2020, using data on every individual in Sweden from 2005-2015, found that (among those with a gender incongruence diagnosis) 38.0% had had gender-confirming surgery and 70.4% were on cross-sex hormones: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20050599 http://sci-hub.se/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20050599
Impacts of Perceived Gender on Perceived Attractiveness
males rated photos of people that were arbitrarily labelled {non-binary people and cis men/women} more feminine than {trans men and trans women}; females rated these categories increasingly feminine
males rated photos of people that were arbitrarily labelled {non-binary people and cis men/women} more feminine than {trans men and trans women}; females rated these categories increasingly feminine: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550618783716 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1948550618783716 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/699264608308953098/trans_attractiveness.pdf
males rated photos of people that were arbitrarily labelled non-binary and transgender people as substantially less attractive; women rated them as slightly less attractive
in contrast, both males and females were only slightly less likely to want people in photos randomly labelled as non-cisgender to be their friend
Consensus: Not Mental Illness and Should Treat W/ Affirming Therapy
American Psychological Association's 2015 guidelines for trans and gender nonconforming people: [1] gender identity is distinct from sex at birth; [2] gender-affirming care improves transgender people's life outcomes
American Psychological Association's 2015 guidelines for trans and gender nonconforming people: [1] gender identity is distinct from sex at birth; [2] gender-affirming care improves transgender people's life outcomes: https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0039906 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/a0039906 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808468060184772689/apa2015.pdf
Given the strong evidence for the positive influence of affirmative care, psychologists are encouraged to facilitate access to and provide trans-affirmative care to TGNC people. Whether through the provision of assessment and psychotherapy, or through assisting clients to access hormone therapy or surgery, psychologists may play a critical role in empowering and validating TGNC adults and adolescents experiences and increasing TGNC people s positive life outcomes.
American Psychiatric Association's 2012 report on gender identity disorder
American Psychiatric Association's 2012 report on gender identity disorder: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-012-9975-x https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10508-012-9975-x https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808468056644517888/byne2012.pdf
The Task Force concludes that the current credible literature is adequate for the development of consensus based treatment recommendations for all subgroups reviewed.
American Academy of Pediatrics 2018 guidelines: Rafferty et al 2018: gender-affirming care models are the best treatment for transgender and gender non-conforming youth
American Academy of Pediatrics 2018 guidelines: Rafferty et al 2018: gender-affirming care models are the best treatment for transgender and gender non-conforming youth: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/4/e20182162/37381/Ensuring-Comprehensive-Care-and-Support-for https://sci-hub.se/10.1542/peds.2018-2162 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985024646334283776/rafferty2018.pdf
In a gender-affirmative care model (GACM), pediatric providers offer developmentally appropriate care that is oriented toward understanding and appreciating the youth s gender experience. A strong, nonjudgmental partnership with youth and their families can facilitate exploration of complicated emotions and gender-diverse expressions while allowing questions and concerns to be raised in a supportive environment. In a GACM, the following messages are conveyed: transgender identities and diverse gender expressions do not constitute a mental disorder; variations in gender identity and expression are normal aspects of human diversity, and binary definitions of gender do not always reflect emerging gender identities; gender identity evolves as an interplay of biology, development, socialization, and culture; and if a mental health issue exists, it most often stems from stigma and negative experiences rather than being intrinsic to the child.
World Health Organization's 2019 classification
Debunk: American College of Pediatricians
at maximum, the American College of Pediatricians has 500 members-- equal to 500/(118000+37800+500) = 0.32% of the APA and APA's members
at maximum, the American College of Pediatricians has 500 members-- equal to 500/(118000+37800+500) = 0.32% of the APA and APA's members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_College_of_Pediatricians
the American Psychological Association has 118000 (240x more) members
the American Psychological Association has 118000 (240x more) members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychological_Association
the American Psychiatric Association has 37800 (75x more) members
the American Psychiatric Association has 37800 (75x more) members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychiatric_Association
Summary
The evidence on whether trans brains align more closely with the identified-as sex or the natal sex is mixed. Most evidence suggests trans brains lean toward their identified-as sex; however, conflicting evidence might suggest that trans brains are "in the middle".
The evidence on whether trans brains align more closely with the identified-as sex or the natal sex is mixed. Most evidence suggests trans brains lean toward their identified-as sex; however, conflicting evidence might suggest that trans brains are "in the middle".
Summary of the Literature
Saraswat 2015: literature review: studies on gray matter, white matter, twins, and prenatal exposure all suggest -- albeit, with limited sample sizes and methods -- that transgender identity, like homosexuality, has a biological origin
Saraswat 2015: literature review: studies on gray matter, white matter, twins, and prenatal exposure all suggest -- albeit, with limited sample sizes and methods -- that transgender identity, like homosexuality, has a biological origin: https://journals.aace.com/doi/abs/10.4158/EP14351.RA http://sci-hub.se/10.4158/EP14351.RA https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808480180946731060/saraswat2015.pdf
Although the mechanisms remain to be determined, there is strong support in the literature for a biologic basis of gender identity.
Current data suggest a biologic etiology for transgender identity. Studies of DSD patients and neuroanatomical studies provide the strongest evidence for the organic basis of transgender identity. Because the sample sizes of most studies on this subject were small, the conclusions must be interpreted with caution. Further research is required to assign specific biologic mechanisms for gender identity.
Brain Structure: Literature Review of Studies Before Hormones
Nguyen 2018: trans brain structure is more often closer to identified sex than natal sex
Nguyen 2018: trans brain structure is more often closer to identified sex than natal sex: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0140-7 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41386-018-0140-7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808480523169038356/nguyen2018.pdf
Presently, findings are conflicting about whether the neuroanatomy of transgender individuals prior to GAHT resembles that of their biological sex or their gender identity, but most crosssectional neuroimaging research indicates that brain morphology and activation patterns at rest and during cognitive performance are more congruent with gender identity than natal sex in untreated MTFs and FTMs.
Brain Structure: Literature Review of All Studies
Smith 2015: literature review: trans people have brain structures similarities to their gender identity
Smith 2015: literature review: trans people have brain structures similarities to their gender identity: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763415002432 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.09.008 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808479574303572038/smith2015.pdf out of 14 studies of brain structure (total N=307, N MtF=195, N FtM=112) with a total of 23 results: 6 results that trans people had brain structure similarities to their birth sex, 12 results that trans people had brain structure similarities to their gender identity, and 5 results that unclear results (either no significant sex differences or no significant differences between trans and cis participants, or both). TLDR: **12 of 18 (66%) results** with clear results **suggest trans people have brain structures with similarities to their current gender identity.**
Brain Function: Literature Review of Studies Before Hormones
Nguyen 2018: trans brain structure is more often closer to identified sex than natal sex
Nguyen 2018: trans brain structure is more often closer to identified sex than natal sex: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0140-7 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41386-018-0140-7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808480523169038356/nguyen2018.pdf
In most cases, investigators have focused on verbal and spatial tasks which display a clear sex bias. Verbal tasks show a female sex bias, while spatial tasks show a male sex bias. Multiple studies conclude that MTFs perform significantly better on female-favoring verbal tests compared to cisgender male controls, whereas FTMs perform significantly worse than cisgender female controls on verbal tests.
Brain Structure and Function: Conflicting Evidence, Non-Binary Possibility
Nguyen 2018: the fact that perhaps 1/4th of evidence suggests trans brains are closer to natal sex suggests that the overall effect may be in the middle
Nguyen 2018: the fact that perhaps 1/4th of evidence suggests trans brains are closer to natal sex suggests that the overall effect may be in the middle: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0140-7 https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41386-018-0140-7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808480523169038356/nguyen2018.pdf
Nevertheless, approximately one-quarter of the literature has presented conflicting data. [....] While the majority of the literature indicates that brain structure and function are more in line with gender identity than natal sex, even in trans individuals who have not undergone GAHT, the equivocal nature of some findings suggests that perhaps we ought to consider a continuum of gender identity where individuals may not fit neatly into binary characterizations.
List of Genetic and Natal Intersex Conditions
Biological Sex: Graph
biological sex is not just male and female: the spectrum between male and female contains numerous biological intersex conditions
biological sex is not just male and female: the spectrum between male and female contains numerous biological intersex conditions: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/
Genetics: Abnormal Chromosome Setups
lower bound sum: 1/2000+1/2000+1/2000+1/80000+1/100000+1/200000 = 0.15275% = 1 in 654
lower bound sum: 1/2000+1/2000+1/2000+1/80000+1/100000+1/200000 = 0.15275% = 1 in 654
Genetics: Abnormal Hormone Setups
Genetics: Abnormal Congenital Setups
Autogynephilia in Cis Women Using Autogynephilia Scale for Women
Moser 2009: using the same methods Blanchard uses, one would be forced to conclude that 93% of cisgender women are AGP
Moser 2009: using the same methods Blanchard uses, one would be forced to conclude that 93% of cisgender women are AGP: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00918360903005212 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00918360903005212 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808459321834471494/moser2009.pdf
By the common definition of ever having erotic arousal to the thought or image of oneself as a woman, 93% of the respondents would be classified as autogynephilic. Using a more rigorous definition of frequent arousal to multiple items, 28% would be classified as autogynephilic.
A convenience sample of female professional employees of an urban hospital was obtained. On two successive days in June, 2005, the questionnaire was distributed by the author, female staff members were approached in either the nurse's station or staff lounge on several different floors during either day or evening shifts (weekdays).
^ Moser 2009: autogynephilia scale for women
^ Moser 2009: autogynephilia scale for women: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00918360903005212 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00918360903005212 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808459321834471494/moser2009.pdf
APPENDIX A: AUTOGYNEPHILIA SCALE FOR WOMEN The following questions relate to any period of your life, at present or in the past: I have been erotically aroused by contemplating myself in the nude. I have been erotically aroused by contemplating myself wearing lingerie, underwear, or foundation garments (e.g., corsets). I have been erotically aroused by contemplating myself fully clothed in sexy attire. I have been erotically aroused by dressing in lingerie or sexy attire for a romantic evening or when hoping to meet a sex partner. I have been erotically aroused by preparing (shaving my legs, applying make-up, etc.) for a romantic evening or when hoping to meet a sex partner. I have dressed in lingerie, sexy attire or prepared myself (shaving my legs, applying make-up, etc.) before masturbating. I have been erotically aroused by imagining myself with a sexier body. I have been erotically aroused by imagining that others find me particularly sexy, attractive, or irresistible. I have been erotically aroused by using specific articles of clothing, odors, or textures during masturbation.
Summary of Blanchard's Earliest Evidence
Serano 2010: in Blanchard 1985, 88% of gynephilic, 75% of asexual, 66% of bisexual, and 15% of androphilic trans women reported ever experiencing arousal in response to wearing women's clothing at least once in their lifetime
Serano 2010: in Blanchard 1985, 88% of gynephilic, 75% of asexual, 66% of bisexual, and 15% of androphilic trans women reported ever experiencing arousal in response to wearing women's clothing at least once in their lifetime: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991175921673449532/serano2010.pdf
Blanchard subdivided MtF transsexuals by sexual orientation into four groups androphilic, gynephilic, bisexual, and asexual. He found that a majority of the gynephilic (87.5%, n = 16), asexual (75%, n = 12) and bisexual (65.7%, n = 35) groups reported having experienced cross-gender arousal in response to wearing women s clothing on at least one occasion in their lives, while only 15% (n = 100) of the androphilic group responded similarly (Blanchard, 1985).
Blanchard Core Autogynephilia Scale
Wyndzen 2003: list of Blanchard's core autogynephilia questions
Replication of Blanchard's Core Autogynephilia Scale
Bailey and Hsu 2022: this study narrowly replicates Blanchard's findings using Blanchard's scale, but in a larger and more diverse set of samples of "autogynephilic natal men" (cross-dressers, trans women, men erotically interested in thinking of themselves as women), other natal men, and natal women
Bailey and Hsu 2022: this study narrowly replicates Blanchard's findings using Blanchard's scale, but in a larger and more diverse set of samples of "autogynephilic natal men" (cross-dressers, trans women, men erotically interested in thinking of themselves as women), other natal men, and natal women: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-022-02359-8 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10508-022-02359-8 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991143261139914882/bailey2022.pdf
We compared four samples of autogynephilic natal males (N=1549), four samples of non-autogynephilic natal males (N=1339), and two samples of natal females (N=500), using Blanchard s original measure: the Core Autogynephilia Scale.
Critique of Blanchard's Causal Claim
Serano 2020: the causal link in Blanchard's evidence is backwards
Serano 2020: the causal link in Blanchard's evidence is backwards: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038026120934690 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0038026120934690 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991168695080591400/serano2020.pdf
Blanchard s studies also showed that many (if not most) non-classical trans women report experiencing gender dysphoria or a desire to be female before they ever experienced FEFs, therefore FEFs could not possibly be causative of gender dysphoria[.]
Furthermore, most nonclassical trans women either never experience FEFs, or experience FEFs only after they have experienced gender dysphoria, thus ruling out the possibly that FEFs caused them to become transgender (Serano, 2010).
Serano 2010: in Blanchard 1985, 88% of gynephilic, 75% of asexual, 66% of bisexual, and 15% of androphilic trans women reported ever experiencing arousal in response to wearing women's clothing at least once in their lifetime
Serano 2010: in Blanchard 1985, 88% of gynephilic, 75% of asexual, 66% of bisexual, and 15% of androphilic trans women reported ever experiencing arousal in response to wearing women's clothing at least once in their lifetime: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991175921673449532/serano2010.pdf
No hard evidence has been forwarded to establish or support this proposed causal relationship. In fact, in the original papers in which Blanchard first developed and tested his theory of autogynephilia (Blanchard, 1989a, 1989b, 1991, 1992), there is no exploration or even discussion of the possibility that cross-gender arousal may be an effect of gender dysphoria (rather than its cause) or that both traits might simply correlate in nonandrophilic MtF individuals for some other reason.
Serano 2010: many trans women report declining cross-gender arousal over time, especially after social or medical transition, suggesting against the idea that autogynephilia is a true paraphilia, that it causes transgender identity, and toward the idea that it begins as a taboo act and becomes routine
Serano 2010: many trans women report declining cross-gender arousal over time, especially after social or medical transition, suggesting against the idea that autogynephilia is a true paraphilia, that it causes transgender identity, and toward the idea that it begins as a taboo act and becomes routine: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991175921673449532/serano2010.pdf
Second, the presumption of causality is challenged by the fact that many MtF spectrum people who experience cross-gender arousal find that it is merely a passing phase rather than central to their transgender experience. For instance, transsexual women typically experience a sharp decrease in cross-gender arousal after transition (Lawrence, 2005). While one could argue that this reduction might simply be a by-product of having lower androgen levels, some transsexuals experience this reduction in cross-gender arousal prior to hormone therapy and orchiectomy (Serano, 2007). Further, many MtF crossdressers who have not taken steps toward physical transition also experience a decrease in cross-gender arousal over time (Buhrich & Beaumont, 1981; Buhrich & McConaghy, 1977a, 1977b; Doorn, Poortinga, & Verschoor, 1994; Ovesey & Person, 1976). While early explorations of feminine clothing and thoughts of female embodiment may be highly arousing (perhaps related to the sexual symbolism associated with femaleness and femininity in our culture), this sexual charge wanes for many MtF cross-dressers and pretransition transsexuals as they begin to interact socially in the feminine role, to develop a conscious female identity, and/or to view their transgender inclinations as authentic and nothing to be ashamed of (Doorn et al., 1994; Serano, 2007).
Serano 2010: female/feminine embodiment fantasies may be coping mechanisms for trans women in the "wrong" body
Serano 2010: female/feminine embodiment fantasies may be coping mechanisms for trans women in the "wrong" body: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/15532739.2010.514223 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991175921673449532/serano2010.pdf
It makes sense that pretransition transsexuals (whose gender identity is discordant with their physical sex) might imagine themselves inhabiting the right body in their sexual fantasies and during their sexual experiences with other people. Indeed, critics of autogynephilia theory have argued that such sex embodiment fantasies appear to be an obvious coping mechanism for pretransition transsexuals (e.g., Barnes, 2001; Gooren, 2006; Serano, 2007). This coping mechanism explanation would also help to account for the sharp decrease in such fantasies that occurs in transsexual women after transition (Lawrence, 2005).
Critique of Measurement of Autogynephilia
Serano 2020: autogynephilia should be reconsidered as female/feminine embodiment fantasies (FEFs) in which one fantasizes about having the body of a female
Serano 2020: autogynephilia should be reconsidered as female/feminine embodiment fantasies (FEFs) in which one fantasizes about having the body of a female: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038026120934690 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0038026120934690 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991168695080591400/serano2020.pdf
Second, the notion that FEFs have the potential to cause transsexuality is specious and not supported by the evidence (Serano, 2010, 2020). After all, almost a third of Lehmiller s subjects experienced crosssex/gender sexual fantasies (Lehmiller, 2018, p. 66), yet the vast majority of these people will never develop gender dysphoria or desire to transition. Furthermore, most nonclassical trans women either never experience FEFs, or experience FEFs only after they have experienced gender dysphoria, thus ruling out the possibly that FEFs caused them to become transgender (Serano, 2010).
Serano 2020: autogynephilia has often been applied without reference to the person's sexuality, which is at odds with the claimed causal mechanism of self-femme-attraction
Serano 2020: autogynephilia has often been applied without reference to the person's sexuality, which is at odds with the claimed causal mechanism of self-femme-attraction: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038026120934690 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0038026120934690 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991168695080591400/serano2020.pdf
A longstanding critique of Blanchard s theory had been that his subtypes were not empirically derived, but rather stemmed from his initial grouping of individuals based on their sexual orientation, thus begging the question that trans women fall into subtypes based on sexual orientation. In contrast to this approach, Veale (2014) performed taxometric analyses on her subjects responses to questions regarding sexual orientation, FEFs, and other aspects of sexuality, and found that the results were dimensional rather than categorical (i.e. trans women fell along a spectrum rather than into distinct subtypes). In an earlier study using the same dataset, Veale et al. (2008) found that when trans women were grouped according to their experiences with FEFs, they did not differ significantly on measures of sexual orientation.
"""Veale et al. (2008) also found that cisgender women frequently report FEFs, with 52% experiencing them at levels comparable to Blanchard s autogynephilic group (see also Moser, 2010)."""
Veale et al. (2008) also found that cisgender women frequently report FEFs, with 52% experiencing them at levels comparable to Blanchard s autogynephilic group (see also Moser, 2010).
Prevalence of Embodiment Fantasies Among the General Public
Lehmiller 2018: lifetime androphilia is not rare: 11% of women reported ever fantasizing about becoming a man, 20% reported reported ever fantasizing about dressing up as men
Lehmiller 2018: lifetime androphilia is not rare: 11% of women reported ever fantasizing about becoming a man, 20% reported reported ever fantasizing about dressing up as men: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1047697826 https://u1lib.org/book/5434676/30039c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991145249680404620/lehmiller2018.pdf
However, if the results of my fantasy survey are any indication, autoandrophilia most definitely is real, and it s probably more common than Blanchard thinks. Indeed, I found that 11 percent of the women I surveyed reported sexual fantasies about becoming men and that 20 percent had fantasized about dressing up as men (although I should clarify that just 2 3 percent said they fantasized about these things often, meaning autoandrophilia rarely becomes women s preferred fantasy content).
Lehmiller 2018: 1/4 of men and women reported fantaizing about cross-dressing and 1/3 of men and women fantasized about trading bodies with someone of the other sex
Lehmiller 2018: 1/4 of men and women reported fantaizing about cross-dressing and 1/3 of men and women fantasized about trading bodies with someone of the other sex: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1047697826 https://u1lib.org/book/5434676/30039c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/991145249680404620/lehmiller2018.pdf
When looking at my participants favorite fantasies of all time, gender-bending was relatively low on the list; however, when I asked whether people had ever fantasized about it, it turned out that a surprisingly large number had. For instance, about one-quarter of men and women had fantasized about cross-dressing, and nearly a third had fantasized about trading bodies with someone of the other sex. In addition, about one in four men and one in six women had fantasized about sex with a cross-dresser, and even more (about one in three men and one in four women) had fantasized about sex with a transsexual partner. My findings revealed that virtually all gender-bending fantasies were more common among men than women, for reasons we ll explore in the next chapter.
As the latter example illustrates, there s sometimes an element of dominance-submission and/or humiliation involved in crossdressing fantasies; however, in cases like this, it is almost exclusively men who want to be feminized by a dominant female partner I didn t read a single fantasy about a woman who wanted to be masculinized by a male partner. Thus, at least for men, fantasies about cross-dressing may sometimes be viewed as an extension of a more general interest in BDSM.
Social Acceptance in Controversial Hypatia Article
Tuvel 2017: claims transgenderism and transracialism *could* be considered analogous if they were both societally accepted (the latter is not)
Tuvel 2017: claims transgenderism and transracialism *could* be considered analogous if they were both societally accepted (the latter is not): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia_transracialism_controversy https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/hypa.12327 http://sci-hub.se/10.1111/hypa.12327 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808466748591702036/tuvel2017.pdf
In the case of sex, the recognition of transgender identity has involved a shift away from an emphasis on one s sexed biology toward an emphasis on gendered selfidentification. In a similar fashion, the recognition of transracial identity might eventually involve a shift away from an emphasis on ancestral ties or skin color of origin toward an emphasis on racial self-identification. In both cases, I think we have stronger reasons to accept individuals self-identities than to force them to feel beholden to an identity thrust upon them at birth.10 The argument for this point is broadly Millian; as a rule, we should encourage different experiments in living and not interfere with others liberty unless doing so would prevent harm to others (Mill 2002, 47). I hope to have shown that harm to members of a race is not an inevitable or obvious consequence of transracialism and, importantly, no more inevitable or obvious in the case of race than of sex.
Methods: Dutch Approach vs Affirmative Approach
Chen et al 2020: summarizes the concern at comparing European and American samples
Chen et al 2020: summarizes the concern at comparing European and American samples: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X20304535 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.07.033 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987476184646451330/chen2020.pdf
Most of these studies, however, were conducted in European clinics that initiate GnRHa or GAH at older ages, on average, than clinics in the U.S. within a watchful waiting model in which children are discouraged from engaging in social gender transitions until adolescence [7-9].
Shumer and Spack 2015: summary of Dutch model before 2014 and a major limit of its age limits
The Dutch Model Saw a Massive Increase of Adolescents Patients but No Decrease of Patients Showing GD, Suggesting High Rates of Untreated GD
Arnoldussen et al 2018: the VUcm CEGD saw a ~10x increase of adolescent patients from 2000 to 2016, for a total of 1072; the proportion of patients assessed to have GD was constant over time; this suggests that GD may have been more common than thought; and this suggests that the Dutch model (including puberty blockers for Tanner Stage 2 adolescents) is applicable to patients currently applying for treatment in the Netherlands
Arnoldussen et al 2018: the VUcm CEGD saw a ~10x increase of adolescent patients from 2000 to 2016, for a total of 1072; the proportion of patients assessed to have GD was constant over time; this suggests that GD may have been more common than thought; and this suggests that the Dutch model (including puberty blockers for Tanner Stage 2 adolescents) is applicable to patients currently applying for treatment in the Netherlands: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-019-01394-6 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s00787-019-01394-6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987468269067845672/arnoldussen2019.pdf
Arnoldussen et al 2018: the VUcm CEGD saw a ~10x increase of adolescent patients from 2000 to 2016, for a total of 1072; adolescent patients reported slightly better mental well-being over time
Arnoldussen et al 2018: the VUcm CEGD saw a ~10x increase of adolescent patients from 2000 to 2016, for a total of 1072; adolescent patients reported slightly better mental well-being over time: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-019-01394-6 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s00787-019-01394-6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987468269067845672/arnoldussen2019.pdf
There are several reasons why one could hypothesize that early referrals may difer from more recent registered adolescents. Due to the increased awareness of GD, it could well be that adolescents are referred at a younger age in recent years. In addition, the experimental character of medical treatment may frst have attracted the most well-functioning group of adolescents with above average intelligence from stable families with a higher educational background able enough to support their of-spring to ask for a treatment that was still considered controversial in early years. The current fow of referrals might include families that are less well functioning in these aspects.
Wiepjes et al 2018: among patients diagnosted with GD in the Dutch Model since 2000, a near-constant proportion of patients have received gender-affirming hormones (GAH); among those patients, a near-constnat proportion have received gender-affirming surgery (GAS)
Wiepjes et al 2018: among patients diagnosted with GD in the Dutch Model since 2000, a near-constant proportion of patients have received gender-affirming hormones (GAH); among those patients, a near-constnat proportion have received gender-affirming surgery (GAS): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29463477/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jsxm.2018.01.016 https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(18)30057-2/fulltext https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987178425448005632/wiepjes2018.pdf
Literature Review: Affirmation Works
Call Challa Telingator 2021: literature review: available evidence suggests that affirming care benefits transgender and gender diverse (TGD) children
Call Challa Telingator 2021: literature review: available evidence suggests that affirming care does not "push" TGD children toward the socially transitioned identity
Name Acceptence Affirmation Benefits
Russell et al 2018: among 74 trans youth (15-21 years old), each additional context where one can use one's chosen name (home, school, work, with friends) correlated with 29% lower suicidal ideation and 56% lower suicidal behavior; if suicidal behavior proxies the suicide attempt rate, and if the no-acceptance suicide attempt rate is ~40%, then being accepted in all four contexts would result in a lifetime attempted suicide rate of ~40*(.44)^4 = 1.5%
Russell et al 2018: among 74 trans youth (15-21 years old), each additional context where one can use one's chosen name (home, school, work, with friends) correlated with 29% lower suicidal ideation and 56% lower suicidal behavior; if suicidal behavior proxies the suicide attempt rate, and if the no-acceptance suicide attempt rate is ~40%, then being accepted in all four contexts would result in a lifetime attempted suicide rate of ~40*(.44)^4 = 1.5%: https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(18)30085-5/fulltext http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.02.003 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/984963287437418516/russell2018.pdf There were no differences in depressive symptoms or suicidal behavior by personal characteristics including gender identity, race/ethnicity, sexual identity, age, access to free lunch, or study site. After adjusting for personal characteristics and total social support, chosen name use in more contexts predicted fewer depressive symptoms and less suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior (see Table 1). An increase by one context in which a chosen name could be used predicted a 5.37-unit decrease in depressive symptoms, a 29% decrease in suicidal ideation, and a 56% decrease in suicidal behavior.
Parental Affirmation Benefits
higher parental support correlates with depression, increases life satisfaction, and decreases perceived burden
higher parental support correlates with depression, increases life satisfaction, and decreases perceived burden: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X13003844 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.07.019 Controlling for demographic variables, parental support was significantly associated with higher life satisfaction, lower perceived burden, and fewer depressive symptoms; complete regression results are presented in Table 2.
Durwood McLaughlin Olson 2017: among 63 socially transitioned trans youth (9-14 years old) who had affirming parents, rates of depression and anxiety were not significantly higher than matched controls or sibling peers
Durwood McLaughlin Olson 2017: among 63 socially transitioned trans youth (9-14 years old) who had affirming parents, rates of depression and anxiety were not significantly higher than matched controls or sibling peers: https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567%2816%2931941-4/fulltext https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jaac.2016.10.016 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/944409645781516288/durwood2016.pdf n=116 trans children, n=122 cis children
Transgender children reported depression and self-worth that did not differ from their matched-control or sibling peers (p = .311), and they reported marginally higher anxiety (p = .076). Compared with national averages, transgender children showed typical rates of depression (p = .290) and marginally higher rates of anxiety (p = .096). Parents similarly reported that their transgender children experienced more anxiety than children in the control groups (p = .002) and rated their transgender children as having equivalent levels of depression (p = .728).
trans adolescents with supportive parents reported 14x lower past-year suicide attempt rates and 2x higher "sufficient housing": (note: this study had no controls!)
Affirmation Does Not Push or Lock Children Into Their Socially Transitioned Identity
Gulgoz et al 2019: children who had socially transitioned for longer did not show stronger or weaker alignment with their gender identity than those who had transitioned for shorter, suggesting that social transition does not force/push children into an identity they disalign with
Gulgoz et al 2019: children who had socially transitioned for longer did not show stronger or weaker alignment with their gender identity than those who had transitioned for shorter, suggesting that social transition does not force/push children into an identity they disalign with: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909367116 https://sci-hub.se/10.1073/pnas.1909367116 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/984967079172128828/gulgoz2019.pdf
Gulgoz et al 2019: in fact, socially transitioned children had gender development very similar to their same-gender cis peers, across multiple aspects of gender (explicit identity, toys, clothing, peers)
Gulgoz et al 2019: in fact, socially transitioned children had gender development very similar to their same-gender cis peers, across multiple aspects of gender (explicit identity, toys, clothing, peers): https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909367116 https://sci-hub.se/10.1073/pnas.1909367116 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/984967079172128828/gulgoz2019.pdf
Access to Inclusive Bathrooms Reduces Suicide
Seelman 2016: inclusive bathroom policies correlate with much lower suicide attempt rates among trans people
Seelman 2016: inclusive bathroom policies correlate with much lower suicide attempt rates among trans people: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00918369.2016.1157998 http://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00918369.2016.1157998 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985664794340249620/seelman2016.pdf
Using the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, this study analyzes whether being denied access to these spaces is associated with lifetime suicide attempts, after controlling for interpersonal victimization by students or teachers. Findings from sequential logistic regression (N = 2,316) indicate that denial of access to either space had a significant relationship to suicidality, even after controlling for interpersonal victimization. This article discusses implications for higher education professionals and researchers.
Anti-Transgender Violence Reduces Suicide
Maguen and Shipherd 2009: among 141 trans respondents, AFAB identity, previous psychiatric hospitalization, and anti-transgender violence all significantly predicted higher previous suicide attempts; gender identity therapy, anxiety-depression therapy, and intravenous drug usage did not
Maguen and Shipherd 2009: among 141 trans respondents, AFAB identity, previous psychiatric hospitalization, and anti-transgender violence all significantly predicted higher previous suicide attempts; gender identity therapy, anxiety-depression therapy, and intravenous drug usage did not: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19419891003634430 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/19419891003634430 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985737564008894534/maguen2010.pdf Wald rank correlation; convenience sampling; weak method?
We examined the frequency and predictors of suicide attempts among gender minority individuals (N = 153) who were recruited at a transgender conference.
Individuals were asked whether they had ever attempted suicide. If they responded that they had attempted suicide, they were asked to report the number of attempts. For the purposes of this study, the suicide attempts variable was categorised on a continuous scale, with a range of 0 6 in the current sample.
Social Affirmation Reduces Suicide
Bauer et al 2015: among 380 resondents to the Trans PULSE survey, lower experienced transphobia correlated with 0.34x lower past-year suicidal ideation and 0.24x lower past-year suicide attempts
Bauer et al 2015: among 380 resondents to the Trans PULSE survey, lower experienced transphobia correlated with 0.34x lower past-year suicidal ideation and 0.24x lower past-year suicide attempts: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-015-1867-2 https://sci-hub.se/10.1186/s12889-015-1867-2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985666943203835974/bauer2015.pdf
Among trans Ontarians, 35.1 % (95 % CI: 27.6, 42.5) seriously considered, and 11.2 % (95 % CI: 6.0, 16.4) attempted, suicide in the past year. Social support, reduced transphobia, and having any personal identification documents changed to an appropriate sex designation were associated with large relative and absolute reductions in suicide risk, as was completing a medical transition through hormones and/or surgeries (when needed). Parental support for gender identity was associated with reduced ideation. Lower self-reported transphobia (10th versus 90th percentile) was associated with a 66 % reduction in ideation (RR=0.34, 95 % CI: 0.17, 0.67), and an additional 76 % reduction in attempts among those with ideation (RR=0.24; 95 % CI: 0.07, 0.82). This corresponds to potential prevention of 160 ideations per 1000 trans persons, and 200 attempts per 1,000 with ideation, based on a hypothetical reduction of transphobia from current levels to the 10th percentile.
Perez-Brumer Hatzenbuehler Oldenburg Bockting 2015: among 1060 respondents, among trans adults, lower structural stigma correlated with 0.96x lower lifetime suicide attemtps and higher internalized transphobia correlated with 1.18x higher lifetime suicide attempt rates; among 766 respondents, neither was significantly correlated with past-year suicide attempts
Perez-Brumer Hatzenbuehler Oldenburg Bockting 2015: among 1060 respondents, among trans adults, lower structural stigma correlated with 0.96x lower lifetime suicide attemtps and higher internalized transphobia correlated with 1.18x higher lifetime suicide attempt rates; among 766 respondents, neither was significantly correlated with past-year suicide attempts: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08964289.2015.1028322 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/08964289.2015.1028322 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985665480960381038/perez-brumer2015.pdf
This study assessed individual (ie, internalized transphobia) and structural forms of stigma as risk factors for suicide attempts among transgender adults. Internalized transphobia was assessed through a 26-item scale including four dimensions: pride, passing, alienation, and shame. State-level structural stigma was operationalized as a composite index, including density of same-sex couples; proportion of Gay Straight Alliances per public high school; 5 policies related to sexual orientation discrimination; and aggregated public opinion toward homosexuality. Multivariable logistic generalized estimating equation models assessed associations of interest among an online sample of transgender adults (N = 1,229) representing 48 states and the District of Columbia. Lower levels of structural stigma were associated with fewer lifetime suicide attempts (AOR 0.96, 95% CI 0.92 0.997), and a higher score on the internalized transphobia scale was associated with greater lifetime suicide attempts (AOR 1.18, 95% CI 1.04 1.33). Addressing stigma at multiple levels is necessary to reduce the vulnerability of suicide attempts among transgender adults.
Zeluf Dhejne et al 2018: among 796 trans respondents, exposure to offensive anti-trans treatment, trans-related violence, and lower practical support were associated with significantly higher past-year suicidal ideation or lifetime suicide attempts
Zeluf Dhejne et al 2018: among 796 trans respondents, exposure to offensive anti-trans treatment, trans-related violence, and lower practical support were associated with significantly higher past-year suicidal ideation or lifetime suicide attempts: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5905855/ https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/lgbt.2017.0011 https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/lgbt.2017.0011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/986026774670491688/zeleuf2018.pdf convenience sample from Zeluf et al 2016
Suicide ideation during the past 12 months was measured by the following question: Have you during the last 12 months seriously considered taking your own life? The variable was dichotomized into yes ( yes, once / yes, several times ) and no.
Lifetime suicide attempts were measured by the following question: Have you ever tried to take your own life? The variable was dichotomized into yes ( yes, between the past 2 weeks and 1 year ago / yes, more than a year ago ) and no.
Participants were self-selected anonymously to a webbased survey between September and November 2014. Participants were recruited via advertisements and email invitations sent by Scandinavia s largest online community for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people (Qruiser). Other LGBTQ organizations promoted the study via different social media channels and personal invitations to email lists. The study was also advertised via Google AdWords and flyers that were distributed at selected gender clinics.
A number of covariates were controlled for in the multivariable analysis, regardless of their significance in the univariable analysis. These include age, education, income, employment status, country of birth, risky consumption of alcohol, and illicit drug use during the past 6 months.
Rood et al 2015: lifetime suicidal ideation was higher among victims of physical or sexual violence, of gender-related discrimination, and those living full-time in the gender of their choice
Rood et al 2015: lifetime suicidal ideation was higher among victims of physical or sexual violence, of gender-related discrimination, and those living full-time in the gender of their choice: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4713016/ https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/lgbt.2013.0048 https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/lgbt.2013.0048 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/986003818728787988/rood2015.pdf
Have you ever thought about killing yourself?
Results are from final models and each model controls for age, gender identity, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment.
Investigators conducted a health needs assessment in Virginia from 2005 to 2006 using community-based participatory research practices.22 Participants were recruited through healthcare providers, peer networks, newsletters, support groups, and community events throughout the state. Participants completed an online or paper-and-pencil questionnaire.
Finally, the lack of a significant association between lifetime SI and reporting three or more discrimination experiences is unexpected. For this result, a closer examination shows that only 8.9% of the total sample reported three or more discrimination experiences. Thus, the regression analysis with this variable was limited by a small cell size when the frequency extended beyond two types, which limits statistical power and may have produced an unreliable estimate.
Literature Review
Call Challa Telingator 2021: literature review: puberty suppression is temporary and reversible; give time for an adolescent to decide their gender; have long been used to treat precocious puberty; show no long-term side effects
Call Challa Telingator 2021: literature review: puberty suppression is temporary and reversible; give time for an adolescent to decide their gender; have long been used to treat precocious puberty; show no long-term side effects: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-021-01245-9 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11920-021-01245-9 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/984966418669912105/call2021.pdf
Todo
de Vries et al 2011: todo reread xxx: that transgender children treated with puberty blockers showed improved psychological functioning
de Vries et al 2011: todo reread xxx: that transgender children treated with puberty blockers showed improved psychological functioning: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609515336171
de Vries et al 2014: todo reread xxx: that transgender children treated with puberty blockers showed improved psychological functioning
de Vries et al 2014: todo reread xxx: that transgender children treated with puberty blockers showed improved psychological functioning: https://www.publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/134/4/696/32932/Young-Adult-Psychological-Outcome-After-Puberty
^ todotodotodo very important
^ todotodotodo very important
Mahfouda et al 2017: todo reread xxx: puberty blockers do not alter long-term pubertal development but rather temporarily pause the progression of endogenous puberty to give patients time to explore their gender without committing to irreversible development of secondary sex characteristics
Mahfouda et al 2017: todo reread xxx: puberty blockers do not alter long-term pubertal development but rather temporarily pause the progression of endogenous puberty to give patients time to explore their gender without committing to irreversible development of secondary sex characteristics: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213858717300992
Puberty Blockers Reduce Suicidality to That of Cis Youth
van der Miesen et al 2019: compared to 651 cis youth, scores for internalizing, externalizing, & suicidality were similar among 178 trans youth using puberty blockers but were higher among 272 trans youth not on puberty suppression
van der Miesen et al 2019: compared to 651 cis youth, scores for internalizing, externalizing, & suicidality were similar among 178 trans youth using puberty blockers but were higher among 272 trans youth not on puberty suppression: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X20300276 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.12.018 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/984973526316490802/vanderMiesen2020.pdf
The samples in this study consisted of consecutive referrals to the Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria of the VU University Medical Center (VUmc) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, between 2012 and 2015, and a control group of cisgender adolescents recruited in 2015 in the general population. During this period, 504 adolescents were seen in our gender identity service. Fiftythree participants did not complete the assessment process and did, therefore, not participate in this study. The reason for dropout was failure to complete the questionnaire or alternation of symptoms of GD. Of the adolescents diagnosed with GD, 179 were about to start GAH treatment. One participant did not complete the questionnaire and was thus excluded. Therefore, in this cross-sectional study, the three groups that were compared consisted of (1) adolescents who just started the assessment process (n 272; mean age 14.5 years; 116 assigned boys at birth and 156 assigned girls at birth), (2) adolescents diagnosed with GD who were on puberty suppression and about to start GAH treatment (n 178; mean age 16.8 years; 68 assigned boys at birth and 110 assigned girls at birth), and (3) cisgender adolescents recruited from the general population (n 651; mean age 15.4 years; 346 assigned boys at birth and 305 assigned girls at birth). Adolescents who just started the diagnostic procedure were assessed during their first sessions at the VUmc. Adolescents diagnosed with GD were assessed before the start of GAH. During both assessments, parents and children completed several questionnaires [20].
Puberty Blockers Reduce Lifetime Suicidal Ideation by Many Times
Turban et al 2020: among 20619 trans adults (18-36 years old), 2.5% reported puberty blocker use in adolescence; that segment reported 0.3x as much lifetime suicidal ideation as those who wanted but could not receive puberty blockers
Bone Density
Lee et al 2020: bone density is often lower among trans youth and trans adults *before* starting puberty blockers or hormone therapy;
Lee et al 2020: bone density is often lower among trans youth and trans adults *before* starting puberty blockers or hormone therapy; https://academic.oup.com/jes/article/4/9/bvaa065/5866143 https://sci-hub.se/10.1210/jendso/bvaa065 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987483685605490738/lee2020.pdf
Data from the Netherlands have shown that pretreatment BMD Z-scores determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) were significantly low in late-pubertal transgender girls before GnRHa and failed to normalize upon treatment with estradiol [9, 10]. Adult studies have similarly shown low BMD Z-scores in transgender women before and after GAH [11-13]. A UK study showed late-pubertal transgender boys had lower pretreatment BMD Z-scores by DXA at the spine and hip [14]. In contrast, another Dutch study that focused on transgender boys in late or postpuberty (median age, 16.5 years) showed normal mean pretreatment BMD Z-scores by DXA at the spine and hip [15].
Non-Useful Data: Trans Youth Care Study
Olson-Kennedy 2018: outlines the research protocol of the Trans Youth Care Study (TYCS), which will examine 90 puberty blocker and 301 gender-affirming hormone patients
Olson-Kennedy 2018: outlines the research protocol of the Trans Youth Care Study (TYCS), which will examine 90 puberty blocker and 301 gender-affirming hormone patients: https://www.researchprotocols.org/2019/7/e14434 https://sci-hub.se/10.2196/14434 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987476825552875570/olson-kennedy2018.pdf convenience sample of patients from four pediatric academic medical centers in the US
Audio computer-assisted self-interview and individual interview survey instruments are used to collect demographic, mental health, psychosocial, and behavioral data from parents and youth in the blocker cohort and only from youth in the gender-affirming hormone cohort at baseline and 6, 12, 18, and 24 months.
Participant recruitment commenced in July 2016, and enrollment was completed in September 2018. A total of 90 participants were enrolled in the blocker cohort and 301 participants were enrolled in the gender-affirming hormone cohort. Findings based on baseline data are expected to be submitted for publication in 2019.
Chen et al 2020: further outlines the protocol
Chen et al 2020: further outlines the protocol: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X20304535 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.07.033 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987476184646451330/chen2020.pdf
In 2015, the National Institutes of Health funded four pediatric academic medical centers to conduct a prospective, longitudinal study to provide a critical evidence base to inform medical treatment of youth GD.
Eligibility for TYC enrollment included (1) presence of GD as determined by a clinician; (2) appropriate and ready to initiate GnRHa or GAH as determined by the primary treatment team; (3) ages 8e20 years; (4) English proficiency; and (5) seeking services at one of the four study site clinics.
Chen et al 2020: the demographics of non-enrolled individuals at two study locations (of four) were not statistically different from the demographics of enrolled individuals, suggesting that TYHC results are generalizeable to (at least) transgender youth in other pediatric academic centers
Chen et al 2020: the demographics of non-enrolled individuals at two study locations (of four) were not statistically different from the demographics of enrolled individuals, suggesting that TYHC results are generalizeable to (at least) transgender youth in other pediatric academic centers: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34414280/ https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/trgh.2020.0060 https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/trgh.2020.0060
Chen et al 2020: the rate of past-half-year suicide attempts was lower among patients on puberty blockers than on gender-affirming hormones; this is almost certainly due to age effects, since PB age was 12 and GAH age was 16; not high quality evidence
Chen et al 2020: the rate of past-half-year suicide attempts was lower among patients on puberty blockers than on gender-affirming hormones; this is almost certainly due to age effects, since PB age was 12 and GAH age was 16; not high quality evidence: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X20304535 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.07.033 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987476184646451330/chen2020.pdf
Literature Review: Summary
Call Challa Telingator 2021: HRT is irreversible, but so is puberty, and both should be considered carefully; and HRT has large positive effects on well-being
Effects: Mental Health Improvements: Longitudinal Data
Kuper et al 2020: among 148 trans youth (9 18yo) taking hormone replacement therapy (83%), reported mental health improved and suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) decreased at both 1-3 month and 18+ month followup
Effects: Mental Health Improvements: Cross-Sectional Data
Green et al 2022: among 11914 trans or nonbinary youth, gender-affirming hormone therapy correlated with 0.61x rates of depression, 0.74x serious consideration of suicide, and 0.62x suicide attempts
Literature Review: Mental Health
Nguyen et al 2018: literature review: improved mental health
Nguyen et al 2018: literature review: improved mental health: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-018-0973-0 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11920-018-0973-0 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808463794006917160/nguyen2018.pdf
Although there are some conflicting data, GAHT overwhelmingly seems to have positive psychological effects in both adolescents and adults. Research tends to support that GAHT reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression, lowers perceived and social distress, and improves quality of life and self-esteem in both male-to-female and female-to-male transgender individuals.
Effects: Mental Health
Heylens 2014: among 57 patients (adults), hormone therapy decreased symptoms of mental distress for trans people to that of the general population
Heylens 2014: among 57 patients (adults), hormone therapy decreased symptoms of mental distress for trans people to that of the general population: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609515305336 https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)30533-6/fulltext https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/jsm.12363 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808463794749046824/heylens2014.pdf
A difference in SCL-90 overall psychoneurotic distress was observed at the different points of assessments (P = 0.003), with the most prominent decrease occurring after the initiation of hormone therapy (P < 0.001). Significant decreases were found in the subscales such as anxiety, depression, interpersonal sensitivity, and hostility. Furthermore, the SCL-90 scores resembled those of a general population after hormone therapy was initiated. Analysis of the psychosocial variables showed no significant differences between pre- and postoperative assessments.
Colizzi 2014: among 107 patients (age ~29), rates of depression were ~19pp higher before hormone therapy (42%) than after 12 months on hormone therapy (33%):
Colizzi et al 2013: among 70 patients (age ~28), cortisol levels and perceived stress were above normal before hormone therapy, but after 12 months of hormone therapy were within normal levels
Effects: Suicidal Ideation
Wilson et al 2014: among 314 transwomen, hormone use and breast augmentation correlated with 0.2x and 0.3x lower lifetime suicidal ideation; genital surgery was not significantly correlated
Wilson et al 2014: among 314 transwomen, hormone use and breast augmentation correlated with 0.2x and 0.3x lower lifetime suicidal ideation; genital surgery was not significantly correlated: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-014-9921-4 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11524-014-9921-4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985976433316868217/wilson2014.pdf
Suicidal ideation was coded as positive for yes responses to the question Have you ever had thoughts or ideations of committing suicide?
These models adjust for age group and race/ethnicity, which are possible confounders for the associations of interest.
Overall, utilization of transition-related medical care was associated with significantly lower estimated odds of suicidal ideation, binge drinking, and non-injection drug use.
Of the 314 transwomen in the sample, 22 had not utilized transition-related medical care as defined for this analysis, 292 had accessed hormones, 49 had breast augmentation, and 28 had genital surgery. Of the 28 transwomen who has genital surgery, 14 also utilized breast augmentation and all utilized hormones. Of the 35 transwomen who accessed breast augmentation, 34 accessed hormones.
Effects: Cardiovascular Health Worsened
transfeminine (MtF) women on cross-sex hormones had 2-4x higher rates of venous thromboembolism (blood clot in veins, usually leg), 2-4x higher rates of ischemic stroke (blood clot in brain/head), and insignificantly higher rates of myocardial infarction (heart attack); there were too few transmasculine cardiovascular events to make any significant claims
transfeminine (MtF) women on cross-sex hormones had 2-4x higher rates of venous thromboembolism (blood clot in veins, usually leg), 2-4x higher rates of ischemic stroke (blood clot in brain/head), and insignificantly higher rates of myocardial infarction (heart attack); there were too few transmasculine cardiovascular events to make any significant claims: https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2687653/cross-sex-hormones-acute-cardiovascular-events-transgender-persons-cohort-study https://sci-hub.se/10.7326/M17-2785 n="2842 transfeminine and 2118 transmasculine members with a mean follow-up of 4.0 and 3.6 years, respectively, matched to 48[,]686 cisgender men and 48[,]775 cisgender women." "In summary, the present study demonstrated that cross-sex estrogen is a risk factor for VTE and probably ischemic stroke among transfeminine persons."
Rate Estimates: Newest, Highest Quality
Olson et al 2022: among 280 transgender youth who started social gender transition around 6 years old, 98.9% remained transgender (opposite gender or nonbinary) at the end of the study, around 5.5 years since starting transition
Olson et al 2022: among 280 transgender youth who started social gender transition around 6 years old, 98.9% remained transgender (opposite gender or nonbinary) at the end of the study, around 5.5 years since starting transition: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2021-056082/186992/Gender-Identity-5-Years-After-Social-Transition https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/971978733458186270/olson2022.pdf
Rate Estimates: Older / Worse
Bakwin 1968: n=55 natal boys, followup age 13-36, persistence 5 of 55 (9%)
^ Zuger 1984, followup to Bakwin 1968: n=55, transgender identity not established/investigated
Davenport 1986: n=10, most of the patients were not transgender
Kosky 1987: n=8
Lebovitch 1972: n=16
Money and Russo: n=11
Zucker and Bradley 1995: 80%, 8.5 years: in Toronto in 1980's-90's, 80% (36/45) desisted of 45 respondents (age 16.7) to the second wave of a survey of 45 attendees (age 8.3) of a gender identity clinic
Zucker and Bradley 1995: 80%, 8.5 years: in Toronto in 1980's-90's, 80% (36/45) desisted of 45 respondents (age 16.7) to the second wave of a survey of 45 attendees (age 8.3) of a gender identity clinic: https://books.google.com/books?id=atfTHGjjVeIC&pg=PA290 [can't access table 10.5]
"In the Green (1987) study, fewer young people went on to self-identify as transsexual but the criteria for inclusion in the study were less strict"
"In the Green (1987) study, fewer young people went on to self-identify as transsexual but the criteria for inclusion in the study were less strict" https://books.google.com/books?id=GsbEtwEACAAJ [can't access source]
Rate Estimates: Newer
Drummon 2008
Wallien and Cohen-Kettenis 2008: 61%, 11 years: in the Netherlands between 1989 and 2005, 61.1% (33/54) desisted of 54 respondents (mean age 19.2) to the second wave of a survey of 77 attendees (age 8.37) of a gender identity clinic
Wallien and Cohen-Kettenis 2008: 61%, 11 years: in the Netherlands between 1989 and 2005, 61.1% (33/54) desisted of 54 respondents (mean age 19.2) to the second wave of a survey of 77 attendees (age 8.37) of a gender identity clinic: https://jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(08)60142-2/fulltext https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/CHI.0b013e31818956b9
Because there were no significant differences between the desistance group and the parent group for all background variables (marital status: #2 3 = 4.41, p 9 .05); diagnoses in childhood (#2 1 = 0.676, p 9 .05); nationality: (#2 4 = 2.56, p 9 .05); full-scale IQ (z = j0.27, p = .80); and psychological functioning, as measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; total T scores [z = j0.88, p 9 .05], internalizing T scores [z = j0.84, p 9 .05], or externalizing T scores [z = j1.17, p 9 .05]), the participants in the parent group were included in the desistance group. Therefore, the desistance group consisted of 33 participants (28 boys and 5 girls).
Singh 2012: 88%, 13 years: in Toronto between 1986 and 2011, 122 (87.8%) desisted of 139 respondents (mean age 20.58) in the second wave of a survey of 179 attendees (mean age 7.49 years)
Steensma et al. 2013: 63%, 7 years: in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2008, 63.0% (80/127) desisted of 127 respondents and nonrespondents (mean age 16.1) to the second wave of a survey of 127 attendees (mean age 9.15) of a gender identity clinic; persistence was correlated with higher age, childhood social transition, and higher gender identity questionaire scores
Steensma et al. 2013: 63%, 7 years: in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2008, 63.0% (80/127) desisted of 127 respondents and nonrespondents (mean age 16.1) to the second wave of a survey of 127 attendees (mean age 9.15) of a gender identity clinic; persistence was correlated with higher age, childhood social transition, and higher gender identity questionaire scores: https://jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(13)00187-1/fulltext http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jaac.2013.03.016
For the 3 desister groups, no significant differences were observed between the responders, parents who responded, and nonresponders for the demographic variables, except for childhood diagnosis (c2 [2] 6.90, p < .05). The adolescents for whom the parents responded were more likely to have a subthreshold diagnosis for GID than the responders and nonresponders. However, in their scores on the childhood measures of GD and psychological functioning, the 3 groups were not significantly different. Given this information, the 3 groups were combined to 1 group of desisters for further analyses.
Steensma and Cohen-Kettenis 2015: 70%, n=150: in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2014, of 150 respondents (mean age 8.31), 40 returned (mean age 13.2) for treatment between 12-18 years old (measured persistence: 40/150=26.7%), 5 returned (mean age 24) between 21-37 years old (measured persistence: 45/150=30%)
Steensma and Cohen-Kettenis 2015: 70%, n=150: in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2014, of 150 respondents (mean age 8.31), 40 returned (mean age 13.2) for treatment between 12-18 years old (measured persistence: 40/150=26.7%), 5 returned (mean age 24) between 21-37 years old (measured persistence: 45/150=30%): https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(14)00801-6/abstract http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jaac.2014.10.016
Clarke and Spiliadis 2019: 58%, 1.5 years: in the USA between 2014 and 2017, 58.3% (7/12) desisted of 12 patients (mean age 14.1) with adolescent-emerging gender dysphoria within 18 months of the first clinical session
Clarke and Spiliadis 2019: 58%, 1.5 years: in the USA between 2014 and 2017, 58.3% (7/12) desisted of 12 patients (mean age 14.1) with adolescent-emerging gender dysphoria within 18 months of the first clinical session: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1359104518825288 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1359104518825288
The mean length of the psychosocial assessment was 9.6months (range=2 14 months). The mean number of assessment sessions was 6.6 (range=2 9 sessions). The mean number of individual appointments was 1.7 (range=0 4 sessions) and the mean number of family sessions was 5 (range=1 8 sessions), that is, on the whole, family sessions constituted much of the assessment. During the course of assessment, seven of the young people, all of whom no longer requested medical interventions also no longer felt that their gender identity was incongruent with their biological sex; the remainder continued in their trans identities but no longer desired medical interventions. Out of the 12 cases, the majority had not received a formal diagnosis of GD.
Gender Affirming Care Models Are Beneficial for All Patients, Not Just Trans
American Academy of Pediatrics 2018 guidelines: Rafferty et al 2018
American Academy of Pediatrics 2018 guidelines: Rafferty et al 2018: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/4/e20182162/37381/Ensuring-Comprehensive-Care-and-Support-for https://sci-hub.se/10.1542/peds.2018-2162 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985024646334283776/rafferty2018.pdf
There is a limited but growing body of evidence that suggests that using an integrated affirmative model results in young people having fewer mental health concerns whether they ultimately identify as transgender.
Meta-Studies: Surgical Outcomes
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: 92% of vaginoplasty patients reported overall satisfaction, 86% satisfaction with function, 90% with aesthetic outcomes
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: 92% of vaginoplasty patients reported overall satisfaction, 86% satisfaction with function, 90% with aesthetic outcomes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29489533/ https://journals.lww.com/annalsplasticsurgery/Abstract/2018/06000/Complications_and_Patient_Reported_Outcomes_in.19.aspx https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/SAP.0000000000001393 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983161503010127872/manrique2018.pdf
Patient-reported outcomes pooled from studies with both techniques, as shown in Figure 3, included an overall satisfaction rate of 92% (75% 100%) with overall results, 86% (72% 95%) with function, and 90% (74% 95%) with aesthetic outcomes. With the penile inversion technique, patient-reported outcomes included a satisfaction rate of 88% (71% 99%) with overall results, 86% (66% 98%) with function, and 86% (71% 96%) with esthetics outcome. Only one study reported overall satisfaction with overall results, and all patients in this study were satisfied.22 Satisfaction with functional outcomes in the intestinal vaginoplasty group was of 86% (75% 95%). One group reported satisfaction with esthetic outcomes in this group, which was 86% (69% 94%).16
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: 76% reported ability to have an orgasm, 89% with intestinal vaginoplasty
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: 76% reported ability to have an orgasm, 89% with intestinal vaginoplasty: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29489533/ https://journals.lww.com/annalsplasticsurgery/Abstract/2018/06000/Complications_and_Patient_Reported_Outcomes_in.19.aspx https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/SAP.0000000000001393 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983161503010127872/manrique2018.pdf
The ability to have an orgasm was 76% (60% 90%; Fig. 4). Within the penile inversion group, this was 75% (57% 89%). One study reported this for intestinal vaginoplasty, which was 89% (72% 96%).
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: 1% of patients had a fistula (undesired hole), 14% had stenosis and strictures (constriction), 2% had tissue necrosis (local tissue death), and 4% had prolapse (vagina or urethra sticks out)
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: 1% of patients had a fistula (undesired hole), 14% had stenosis and strictures (constriction), 2% had tissue necrosis (local tissue death), and 4% had prolapse (vagina or urethra sticks out): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29489533/ https://journals.lww.com/annalsplasticsurgery/Abstract/2018/06000/Complications_and_Patient_Reported_Outcomes_in.19.aspx https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/SAP.0000000000001393 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983161503010127872/manrique2018.pdf
Complications from pooled data including both skin inversion technique and vaginoplasty with intestinal flaps showed 1% (1% 6%) fistula, 14% (10% 18%) stenosis and strictures, 2% (0% 8%) tissue necrosis, and 4% (2% 10%) prolapse, of which the majority were neovaginal (78%) and the remaining urethral. Figure 2 shows overall complications and grouped by vaginoplasty technique. Complications with the penile inversion technique included 1% (0% 5%) fistula formation, 10% (7% 15%) stenosis or stricture, 2% (0% 8%) tissue necrosis, and 3% (1% 8%) prolapse (77% neovagina, 23% urethral). Complications with intestinal vaginoplasty included 6% (2% 20%) fistula formation, 17% (9% 16%) stenosis or stricture, and 3% (1% 8%) prolapse (81% neovagina, 29% urethral). There were no reported cases of partial or complete tissue necrosis in the intestinal pedicle group. Most complications reported among the 2 techniques had an I 2 value greater than 50% representing considerable heterogeneity in the number complications reported (GRADE: low quality).
Meta-Studies: General Quality of Life: Mixed but Net Positive Support
Passos Teixeira Almeida-Santos 2019: meta-analysis: over 14 studies of 881 individuals: after gender affirmation surgery (GAS), reported physical, sexual, and psycological well-being significantly improved by ~2 standard deviations (many studies); but reported physical health significantly decreased by ~1 standard deviation (one study)
Passos Teixeira Almeida-Santos 2019: meta-analysis: over 14 studies of 881 individuals: after gender affirmation surgery (GAS), reported physical, sexual, and psycological well-being significantly improved by ~2 standard deviations (many studies); but reported physical health significantly decreased by ~1 standard deviation (one study): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-019-00394-0 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s13178-019-00394-0 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983149517559975946/passos2019.pdf
The combination of studies shows a slight positive effect of GAS on individuals quality of life. The study with trans men population submitted to mastectomy (study 8) obtained better results. Besides, it was the only one with significant results in all modules of the QoL questionnaire. Among them, the top results were breast satisfaction (p < 0.0001) and psychosocial well-being (p < 0.0001), although sexual satisfaction (p < 0.0001) and physical well-being (p < 0.0001) showed positive results as well. Studies with trans women population also had positive effects in specific modules (studies 6, 10). Domains II (psychological) (p = 0.041) and IV (social relationships) (p = 0.007) were improved significantly after GAS (study 6). Patients mostly improved general satisfaction (p = 0.01), or satisfaction with body image (p < 0.01) or self-esteem (p = 0.01) (study 10). Nonetheless, these studies stand out because they have a negative effect. Domains I (physical health) (p = 0.002) and III (level of independence) (p = 0.031) were significantly worse after GAS (study 6). In one of the studies, the negative effect on two modules brought positive data regarding quality of life. Before surgery, the results of the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 displayed high value of 3.95, which suggested mild depression and anxiety disorder. After surgery, the values concerning this specific score were significantly lower (p < 0.01). The lower value in the Freiburg Personality Inventory score found in T1 (p = 0.03) compared to T0 showed greater emotional stability.
High-Quality Evidence: Several Specific Outcomes Areas: Meta-Study Found Strong Support in Weak Evidence
Murad et al 2010: meta-analysis: over 28 studies of 1833 SRS+HRT patients (mean followup 6 years), 72%-80% of patients improved; indicators: gender dysphoria, psychiatric wellbeing [including suicidal ideation], quality of life, and sexual wellbeing; however, just 3 studies used controls
Murad et al 2010: meta-analysis: over 28 studies of 1833 SRS+HRT patients (mean followup 6 years), 72%-80% of patients improved; indicators: gender dysphoria, psychiatric wellbeing [including suicidal ideation], quality of life, and sexual wellbeing; however, just 3 studies used controls: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03625.x http://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03625.x https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983122961538093056/murad2010.pdf
Pooling across studies shows that after sex reassignment, 80% of individuals with GID reported significant improvement in gender dysphoria (95% CI = 68 89%; 8 studies; I2 = 82%); 78% reported significant improvement in psychological symptoms (95% CI = 56 94%; 7 studies; I2 = 86%); 80% reported significant improvement in quality of life (95% CI = 72 88%; 16 studies; I2 = 78%); and 72% reported significant improvement in sexual function (95% CI = 60 81%; 15 studies; I2 = 78%).
Some Small Studies to Characterize the Literature Review
Cohen-Kettenis and Van Goozen 1997: among 22 trans individuals of average age 17.5, after follow-up of 1 year or more, none expressed regret, and gender dysphoria had fallen to normal levels in the general population
Cohen-Kettenis and Van Goozen 1997: among 22 trans individuals of average age 17.5, after follow-up of 1 year or more, none expressed regret, and gender dysphoria had fallen to normal levels in the general population: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0890856709628070 https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/00004583-199702000-00017 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983144546550579261/cohen-kettenis1997.pdf
Postoperatively the group was no longer gender-dysphoric ; they scored in the normal range with respect to a number of different psychological measures and they were socially functioning quite well. Not a single subject expressed feelings of regret concerning the decision to undergo sex reassignment.
High-Quality Evidence: Large Swedish Population-Matching Study: No Effect Among Trans Population W/ Surgery Compared to Trans Population W/ No Surgery
Branstrom et al 2020, using data on every individual in Sweden from 2005-2015, focused on among all individuals with legal gender changes in Sweden (n=2679) following diagnosis of gender incongruence, found no difference between hormone/no-hormone and surgery/no-surgery trans individuals for the outcomes of {hospitalization for suicide attempt} and for {mental health service use}; however, the measure of mental health service is weak: original
Summary of Murad and Branstrom
Almazan and Keuroghlian 2021: summary of the above studies: controversial evidence
Almazan and Keuroghlian 2021: summary of the above studies: controversial evidence: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8082431/ https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2779429 https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/jamasurg.2021.0952 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985030119947120660/almazan2021.pdf
Existing evidence on the association between gender-affirming surgeries and mental health outcomes is largely derived from small-sample, cross-sectional, and uncontrolled studies.1,11,12 A seminal 1998 review of the experiences of more than 2000 TGD people from 79 predominantly uncontrolled follow-up studies demonstrated qualitative improvement in psychosocial outcomes following gender-affirming surgery.11 Attempts since then to empirically demonstrate mental health benefits from gender-affirming surgery have generated mixed results. A meta-analysis of 1833 TGD people across 28 studies concluded that studies offered low-quality evidence for positive mental health benefits from surgical gender affirmation.12 The largest existing study on this subject to our knowledge,13 a total population study including 2679 people diagnosed as having gender incongruence in Sweden, demonstrated a longitudinal association between gender-affirming surgery and reduced mental health treatment utilization.13 However, a 2020 published correction of this study14 demonstrated no mental health benefit from gender-affirming surgery after comparison with a control group of TGD people who had not yet undergone surgery. Mental health effects of gender-affirming surgery thus remain controversial.
Debunk: Misuse of "Sweden Study" by Dhejne
Dhejne et al 2011: this study only used **non-transgender individuals** as the control; it cannot evaluate whether social or medical transition affects suicide
Dhejne et al 2011: this study only used **non-transgender individuals** as the control; it cannot evaluate whether social or medical transition affects suicide: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885 https://sci-hub.se/10.1371/journal.pone.0016885 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985021220007338024/dhejne2011.pdf All 324 sex-reassigned persons (191 male-to-females, 133 female-to-males) in Sweden, 1973 2003. Random population controls (10:1) were matched by birth year and birth sex or reassigned (final) sex, respectively. [....] It is therefore important to note that the current study is only informative with respect to transsexual persons health after sex reassignment; no inferences can be drawn as to the effectiveness of sex reassignment as a treatment for transsexualism. In other words, the results should not be interpreted such as sex reassignment per se increases morbidity and mortality. Things might have been even worse without sex reassignment.
Dhejne commenting on Reddit in 2017
Dhejne commenting on Reddit in 2017: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6q3e8v/science_ama_series_im_cecilia_dhejne_a_fellow_of/dkuk2tr/ https://archive.ph/OOjEW
I have said many times that the study is not design to evaluate the outcome of medical transition. It DOES NOT say that medical transition causes people to commit suicide. However it does say that people who have transition are more vulnerable and that we need to improve care. I am happy about that it has also been seen that way and in those cases help to secure more resources to transgender health care. On a personal level I can get both angry and sad of the misinterpretations and also sometimes astonished that some researcher don t seem to understand some basics about research methology.
Dhejne 2017: the author has repeatedly stated that her study doesn't support anti-SRS or pro-SRS beliefs
Dhejne 2017: the author has repeatedly stated that her study doesn't support anti-SRS or pro-SRS beliefs: https://www.transadvocate.com/fact-check-study-shows-transition-makes-trans-people-suicidal_n_15483.htm
Dhejne: The aim of trans medical interventions is to bring a trans person s body more in line with their gender identity, resulting in the measurable diminishment of their gender dysphoria. However trans people as a group also experience significant social oppression in the form of bullying, abuse, rape and hate crimes. Medical transition alone won t resolve the effects of crushing social oppression: social anxiety, depression and posttraumatic stress. What we ve found is that treatment models which ignore the effect of cultural oppression and outright hate aren t enough. We need to understand that our treatment models must be responsive to not only gender dysphoria, but the effects of anti-trans hate as well. That s what improved care means.
Dhejne: People who misuse the study always omit the fact that the study clearly states that it is not an evaluation of gender dysphoria treatment. If we look at the literature, we find that several recent studies conclude that WPATH Standards of Care compliant treatment decrease gender dysphoria and improves mental health.
Debunk: Misuse of Williams Institute Study
Herman Brown Haas 2019: all correlations in this study are univariate and should be ignored; beyond that, the odds ratio reported by Last as "visibly trans" comes from the question "People can tell I m trans, even if I don t tell them" and compares those who "always" pass and those who "never" pass; this is not the same as choosing to be visibly trans!
Herman Brown Haas 2019: all correlations in this study are univariate and should be ignored; beyond that, the odds ratio reported by Last as "visibly trans" comes from the question "People can tell I m trans, even if I don t tell them" and compares those who "always" pass and those who "never" pass; this is not the same as choosing to be visibly trans!: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/suicidality-transgender-adults/ https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Suicidality-Transgender-Sep-2019.pdf
Debunk: Idiotic Study by Heritage Foundation
Greene 2022: claims puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones increase youth suicide
Reed 2022: the study above's dependent variable was whether minors can access a doctor w/o parental consent (not access to puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones); the states rated as more-affirming include arch-conservative states Florida, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Alabama, Arizona, North Dakota, Idaho, Indiana; and the model was clearly re-fit to obtain statistically significant results
Reed 2022: the study above's dependent variable was whether minors can access a doctor w/o parental consent (not access to puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones); the states rated as more-affirming include arch-conservative states Florida, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Alabama, Arizona, North Dakota, Idaho, Indiana; and the model was clearly re-fit to obtain statistically significant results: https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1536389660846567425 https://archive.ph/wip/czKG6
Todotodotodo Chen 2019
Chen et al 2019: trans individuals who reported seeking gender reassignment surgery (but almost certainly not getting it) had 1.761x higher suicidal ideation and
Chen et al 2019: trans individuals who reported seeking gender reassignment surgery (but almost certainly not getting it) had 1.761x higher suicidal ideation and : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30699856/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032718317920 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jad.2018.12.011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985986373343399947/chen2019.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/986003321041080341/zhu_supplementary_material.docx
In China, imperfect transgender medical treatment and a lack of relevant laws and regulations are major obstacles to successfully dealing with identifying as a transgender individual. It is difficult for the TW and TM population to complete gender reassignment surgery due to barriers to obtaining surgical information and a lack of surgical resources in China. Moreover, most of the relevant prerequisites outlined in surgical regulations are unreasonable or excessively demanding for recipients (Jiang et al., 2014). For instance, the individual must get approval from direct relatives, and obtain a clear criminal record from the public security office.
Snowball sampling also was used in this study. The method of approaching first-wave participants was contact from LGBT centers, educational institutions, and social networking platforms/media through phone calls, text messages or online recruitment advertisement. Participants were then asked to help identify further recruits (second and subsequent snowball waves). All participants remained anonymous, and written informed consent was obtained prior to participation.
Summary
Detransition is real and should be respected -- but it's very rare and should not be used to restrict gender-affirming healthcare.
Detransition is real and should be respected -- but it's very rare and should not be used to restrict gender-affirming healthcare.
Retransition Is Common
James et al 2016: USTS: 8% of trans people have ever detransitioned; of those, 62% reported that they are currently living in a gender different than their birth gender; thus, 3% have permanently or currently detransitioned to their birth gender
James et al 2016: USTS: 8% of trans people have ever detransitioned; of those, 62% reported that they are currently living in a gender different than their birth gender; thus, 3% have permanently or currently detransitioned to their birth gender: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
Respondents were asked whether they had ever de-transitioned, which was defined as having gone back to living as [their] sex assigned at birth, at least for a while. Eight percent (8%) of respondents reported having de-transitioned at some point. Most of those who de-transitioned did so only temporarily: 62% of those who had de-transitioned reported that they were currently living full time in a gender different than the gender they were thought to be at birth.
Literature Review: Trans Surgery in General, Mostly Vaginoplasty and Mastectomy
Bustos et al 2021: meta-study: across 27 studies with 7928 patients, 77 (0.97%) reported "sometimes" or "always" regretting their surgery
Bustos et al 2021: meta-study: across 27 studies with 7928 patients, the rate of regret was roughly 2% after vaginoplasties and less than 1% after mastectomy
^ Exposito-Campos and Angelo 2021: critique of the above study
^ Bustos 2021: corrected the main study, but corrections caused no significant change in conclusions
^ Bustos 2021: responded to the above methodological concerns; both were not valid
Large Study: Dutch Sample
Wiepjes et al 2018: 2760 trans women and 985 trans men visited the VUcm CEGD (representing 95% of Dutch patients for gender dysphoria from 1972-2015); of those, 2624 trans women (68.9%) and 1183 trans men (72.9%) began gender-affirming hormones (GAH); of those, 1976 trans women (79.5%) and 992 trans men (83.8%) obtained gender-affirming surgery (GAS); and of those, 11 trans women (0.6%) and 3 trans men (0.3%) reported regret to the CEGD
Wiepjes et al 2018: 2760 trans women and 985 trans men visited the VUcm CEGD (representing 95% of Dutch patients for gender dysphoria from 1972-2015); of those, 2624 trans women (68.9%) and 1183 trans men (72.9%) began gender-affirming hormones (GAH); of those, 1976 trans women (79.5%) and 992 trans men (83.8%) obtained gender-affirming surgery (GAS); and of those, 11 trans women (0.6%) and 3 trans men (0.3%) reported regret to the CEGD: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29463477/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jsxm.2018.01.016 https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(18)30057-2/fulltext https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987178425448005632/wiepjes2018.pdf
Wiepjes et al 2018: the VUcm CEGD sample includes ~95% of Dutch patients for gender dysphoria from 1972-2015
Large Study: Usts Sample
Turban et al 2021: among 17151 respondents to the USTS who pursued gender affirmation, 2242 (13.1%) reported any detransition during their life
Literature Review: Vaginoplasty
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: after vaginoplasty, slightly more than 1% of patients regretted the surgery
Manrique et al 2018: meta-study: after vaginoplasty, slightly more than 1% of patients regretted the surgery: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29489533/ https://journals.lww.com/annalsplasticsurgery/Abstract/2018/06000/Complications_and_Patient_Reported_Outcomes_in.19.aspx https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/SAP.0000000000001393 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983161503010127872/manrique2018.pdf
Regret (Fig. 5) about have the procedure was 1% (0 3%) overall, 2% (0 4%) in the penile inversion group, and 0% in the one study that reported this in the intestinal vaginoplasty group.38 The GRADE results for all patient-reported outcomes were very low and low quality.
Survey of Surgeons
Danker et al 2018: among 46 surgeons who performed an estimated 22,725 sexual reassignment surgeries, surgeons reported that just 38 surgeries (.17%) were reversals and 62 patients (0.27%) regretted their surgery
Danker et al 2018: among 46 surgeons who performed an estimated 22,725 sexual reassignment surgeries, surgeons reported that just 38 surgeries (.17%) were reversals and 62 patients (0.27%) regretted their surgery: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6212091/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/01.GOX.0000547077.23299.00 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983121623123099658/danker2018.pdf Surgeons were asked to select a range representing the number of transgender patients they have surgically treated, and this amounted to a cumulative number of approximately 22,725 patients treated by the cohort. 49% of respondents had never encountered a patient who regretted their gender transition or were seeking detransition care. 12 providers encountered 1 patient with regret and the rest encountered more than one patient. This amounted to a total of 62 patients. There were 13 patients who regretted chest surgery and 45 patients who regretted genital surgery. The composition of the patients who sought detransition is as follows: 16 trans-men, 37 trans-women, and 6 non-binary patients. The most common reason cited for detransition was change in gender identity (22 patients) followed by rejection or alienation from family or social support (8 patients) and difficulty in romantic relationships (7 patients). Chronic post-operative pain was also cited as a reason for detransition. 7 trans-women who sought detransition had vaginal stenosis, 2 had rectovaginal fistulae, and 3 had chronic genital pain. 2 trans-men who sought detransition had a urethral fistula and one had a urethral stricture. 9 of the 46 respondents performed a total of 38 detransition procedures.
Uk Medical Sample
Davies McIntyre Rypma 2019: among 3398 patients attending an adult gender identity clinic in the UK in 2016, just 0.47% used terms suggesting regret for their medical transition
Davies McIntyre Rypma 2019: among 3398 patients attending an adult gender identity clinic in the UK in 2016, just 0.47% used terms suggesting regret for their medical transition: https://epath.eu/past-conferences/conference-2019/ https://epath.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Boof-of-abstracts-EPATH2019.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983121712453386270/davies2019.pdf
Patient assessment reports created between August 1st 2016 to August 1st 2017 were scanned electronically for words related to detransition or regret. The reports that were retrieved in the search were reviewed by study authors to identify evidence that patients had detransitioned or expressed regret related to their transition. Data extraction included patients age, gender identity, gender assigned at birth, and descriptions of their detransition or regret.
Of the 3398 patients who had appointments during this period, 16 (0.47%) expressed transition-related regret or detransitioned. Of these 16, one patient expressed regret but was not considering detransitioning, two had expressed regret and were considering detransitioning, three had detransitioned, and ten had detransitioned temporarily. The reasons stated by patients for their regret or detransition included: social factors, reporting physical complications, and changing their mind about their gender identity and identifying as their gender assigned at birth. The 16 patients consisted of 11 trans women, two trans men, two cis men, and one person assigned male at birth who said their gender identity was trans .
Legal Gender Change in Sweden
Dhejne et al 2014: from 1960 to 2011 in Sweden, 681 individuals requested and received both sex reassignment surgery (SRS) and a legal gender change; of these, 15 later requested a legal gender change to their birth gender; this suggests a 2.2% detransition rate or regret rate
Dhejne et al 2014: the above rate has declined dramatically with time
My Videos
Socialism Done Left 2019: trans suicide rates are likely 5-15x higher than the general populace, but 40% of the trans population does *not* kill itself
Socialism Done Left 2019: trans suicide rates are likely 5-15x higher than the general populace, but 40% of the trans population does *not* kill itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ioc8pLo2uQ
Data Nonexistence
the data does not yet exist
the data does not yet exist: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109917/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109917/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK109917.pdf Studies over the last four decades suggest that LGBT individuals may have an elevated risk for suicide ideation and attempts. Attention to this disparity has been limited, in part because neither the U.S. death certificate nor the NVDRS identify decedents sexual orientation or gender identity. Thus, it is not known whether LGBT people die by suicide at higher rates than comparable heterosexual people.
Estimation: Usa
the average US suicide rate in 2015 was 13.0 per 100,000 per year
the average US suicide rate in 2015 was 13.0 per 100,000 per year: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml
Estimation: Past-Year
USTS 2015: transgender people in the USA report 5-10 times higher past-year suicide attempts
USTS 2015: transgender people in the USA report 5-10 times higher past-year suicide attempts: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf
NSDUH results with larger groups
Estimation: Lifetime
transgender people in the USA report 40% lifetime suicide attempt rate
Kessler Borges Walters 1998: self-reported lifetime suicide attempt rate among people in the USA is 4.6% in 1990-1992 National Comorbidity Survey n=5877
Kessler Borges Walters 1998: self-reported lifetime suicide attempt rate among people in the USA is 4.6% in 1990-1992 National Comorbidity Survey n=5877: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/205075 http://sci-hub.se/10.1001/archpsyc.56.7.617
Baca-Garcia et al 2008: self-reported lifetime suicide attempt rate among people in the USA is 2.4% in both 1991 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey n=42862 and 2001 2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions n=43093
Baca-Garcia et al 2008: self-reported lifetime suicide attempt rate among people in the USA is 2.4% in both 1991 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey n=42862 and 2001 2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions n=43093: https://www.nature.com/articles/mp200898 http://sci-hub.se/10.1038/mp.2008.98
Estimation: Adolescent
transgender adolescents report 1.27-1.84 times higher lifetime suicide attempts
transgender adolescents report 1.27-1.84 times higher lifetime suicide attempts: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2018/09/07/peds.2017-4218 http://sci-hub.se/10.1542/peds.2017-4218
Self-reported lifetime suicide behavior was assessed with a single question: Have you ever tried to kill yourself? The response options included: no; yes, once; yes, twice; and yes, more than 2 times. These responses were dichotomized such that 0 = never and 1 = ever
Homeless Youth: Around the Same Rate
Barnes Gilbertson Chatterjee: 9.3% of youth who were homeless with an adult family member reported attempting suicide in the past year
Holocaust: Pre-Nazi Era and Nazi Era
the successful suicide rate among Jews in Germany before the Nazi era was about 27.1-53.2 per 100,000 per year (simple mean (31.5+27.1+33.1+25.0+42.1)/5=31.8); in cities, the rate was 13-67.8 per 100,000 per year (simple mean (67.8+48+13+17+41)/5=37)
the successful suicide rate among Jews in Germany before the Nazi era was about 27.1-53.2 per 100,000 per year (simple mean (31.5+27.1+33.1+25.0+42.1)/5=31.8); in cities, the rate was 13-67.8 per 100,000 per year (simple mean (67.8+48+13+17+41)/5=37): https://books.google.com/books?id=R1nkj-xSzYgC&pg=PA85
the successful suicide rate among non-deported Jews in Germany during the Nazi era was about 158-317 per 100,000 per year
the successful suicide rate among non-deported Jews in Germany during the Nazi era was about 158-317 per 100,000 per year: https://books.google.com/books?id=R1nkj-xSzYgC&pg=PA88
Holocaust: Ghettos
in the Lodz ghetto, according to a secret Jewish chronicle, completed suicides per 100,000 per year were 21.6 in 1941, 84.6 in 1942, and unknown for 1943-44
in the Lodz ghetto, according to a secret Jewish chronicle, completed suicides per 100,000 per year were 21.6 in 1941, 84.6 in 1942, and unknown for 1943-44: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2190/E392-DT1H-CWVT-LDUC https://sci-hub.se/10.2190/E392-DT1H-CWVT-LDUC
Holocaust: Camps
suicide among holocaust concentration camps was at least ~1 per 4 (25000/100000)
Holocaust: Survivors
all studies of holocaust survivors have found non-increased or decreased suicide rates
full Holocaust survivors have non-elevated suicide risk while partial Holocaust survivors (emigres) have elevated suicide risks
full Holocaust survivors have non-elevated suicide risk while partial Holocaust survivors (emigres) have elevated suicide risks: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13811118.2017.1366377 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/13811118.2017.1366377
Suicide Rate vs Slaves
the completed suicide rate among slaves was ~.72 per 100,000 in the USA in 1850
the completed suicide rate among slaves was ~.72 per 100,000 in the USA in 1850: https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/1654 https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/1654/KneelandL0506.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191102161632/https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/1654/KneelandL0506.pdf There are a few sources that provide numbers. Lester includes a table of suicide rates calculated from the 1850 census. 180 According to this, slaves in 1850 had a suicide rate of .72 per 100,000 while whites had a rate of 2.37 and freed slaves a rate of 1.15. P. D. Escott searched Federal Writer's Project Slave Narratives and documented resistance. In his list, which included a total of 413 incidents of resistance, there were seven incidents of suicide. This leaves suicide to account for 1.2% of incidents of resistance.
suicide among black people is diminished by religiosity and self-perception
suicide among black people is diminished by religiosity and self-perception: https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/1654 https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/1654/KneelandL0506.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191102161632/https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/1654/KneelandL0506.pdf However, today there are some black churches which teach that suicide is an unredeemable act. This teaching appears to have developed after Reconstruction but was very likely affected by attitudes toward suicide that trace back to slavery. In the early 1990s, Kevin Early conducted a sociological survey among black churches in Gainesville, Florida, and established that black pastors tend to view suicide as an unredeemable act. The overall condemnation of suicide as sin remains clear. Terminal or painful disease is no excuse for giving up. It merely enhances the quality of life through struggle. After all, struggling is inherently part of the black experience. 185 Early establishes that while pastors condemn both suicide and criminal behavior, they tend to label individuals involved in typical property and violent crimes, including homicide, as victims of their environment. They argue that parents were too hard on children, society did not offer them the same benefits as white families, and they did not have good economic or educational opportunities. 186 In contrast, when they discussed suicide, it was uniformly condemned as sinful and the belief was proposed that adversity can be overcome without resorting to suicide. 187 Blacks described themselves as able to endure more hardship without succumbing to the despair and despondency that lead to suicide. 188 Along that same idea, African Americans view themselves as being more religious, more spiritual than their white counterparts, and more able to endure hardship.
Causal Evidence: No Increase From Gipandos
Hasenbuch et al 2018: localities in Massachusetts that adopted GIPANDOs ("discrimination on gender identity banned in public accomodations") had no increase in reports of (assault, sex crimes, voyeurism) in (public restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms)
Hasenbuch et al 2018: localities in Massachusetts that adopted GIPANDOs ("discrimination on gender identity banned in public accomodations") had no increase in reports of (assault, sex crimes, voyeurism) in (public restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13178-018-0335-z https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s13178-018-0335-z https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/962929864292315186/hasenbush2018.pdf "gender-identity inclusive public accommodations nondiscrimination ordinances"
On Media Biases: Even Anti-Trans Sources Admit This Bias Is Likely
quoting an anti-trans source: alleged increase in bathroom incidents may be due to media change, not policy change
quoting an anti-trans source: alleged increase in bathroom incidents may be due to media change, not policy change: http://womanmeanssomething.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/A-Longitudinal-Analysis-of-Media-Reports-at-Target-Stores.pdf Another potential limitation of our analysis is that we don't know if pressure on Target has impacted media reporting. It may be that in some areas, perhaps in conservative locales, a bias may exist to report more of the total Target incidents occurring. It could also be that in other areas a liberal bias would lead to the suppression of news stories. We have noted a tendency in some states, usually liberal ones, to not report addresses of the incident locations. This may or may not be related to media bias.
Argument by Lack of Republican Examples
the North Carolina GOP was unable to find a single example of a trans person using a bathroom to sexually assault others
the North Carolina GOP was unable to find a single example of a trans person using a bathroom to sexually assault others: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article70255967.html
Specific Case: Dakota Nieves
Specific Debunks: Miguel Martinez
2017: Miguel Martinez raped a child in a *home* bathroom, not a single-gender bathroom
2017: Miguel Martinez raped a child in a *home* bathroom, not a single-gender bathroom: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/miguel-martinez-transgender-bathroom-controversy/
What's True A transgender woman named Michelle Martinez was convicted of sexually assaulting a young daughter of a friend in a bathroom in a private home. What's False The incident did not occur in a bathroom Martinez was using because of transgender bathroom bills.
Specific Debunks: Florence High School
2013: Florence High School, Colorado: "Girls 'Harassed' In School Bathroom By Transgender Student Told His Rights Trump Their Privacy"
debunk
case number 15-9887 (Df-15-09887-s)
News:
Pediatrician: Identity
Pape's info
Jennifer Pape is James/Luna (the kid) and Jude (the brother)'s pediatrician
Jennifer Pape (the pediatrician) stated that James/Luna (the kid) chooses to call themselves Luna
Jennifer Pape (the pediatrician) stated that James/Luna (the kid) chooses to wear girl's clothing
Jennifer Pape (the pediatrician) stated that James/Luna (the kid) identifies as a girl
Counselor: Identity
Ouer's info
Rebekka Ouer is James/Luna (the kid)'s counselor
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) identifies as a girl and chooses to wear girl's clothing
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) chooses to wear girl's clothing
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) was forced by the father to wear boy's clothes and go as James to a soccer meeting
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) was forced by the father to wear boy's clothes and go as James to a soccer meeting: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) also appears comfortable in boy's clothes when brought by the father, but has stated otherwise
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) also appears comfortable in boy's clothes when brought by the father, but has stated otherwise: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) is not currently receiving any hormone blockers and would not do so until puberty begins
Rebekka Ouer (the counselor) stated that James/Luna (the kid) is not currently receiving any hormone blockers and would not do so until puberty begins: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Transgender Expert: Identity
Parks' info
Wesley Parks (an expert on transgender counseling) reviewed documents from Dr. Pape (the pediatrician) and Ms. Ouer (the counselor) and concluded that James/Luna (the kid) identifies as a girl
Wesley Parks (an expert on transgender counseling) reviewed documents from Dr. Pape (the pediatrician) and Ms. Ouer (the counselor) and concluded that James/Luna (the kid) identifies as a girl: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
CPS Agent: Identity
Jasmine Jackson is the DFPS agent for one of two DFPS cases about James and Jude younger
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that the principal states that she has no concerns of either child being pressured to identify with a gender
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that the principal states that she has no concerns of either child being pressured to identify with a gender: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that the teacher states that Luna prefers to be called Luna and is not being pressured to identify as female
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that the teacher states that Luna prefers to be called Luna and is not being pressured to identify as female: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that Jude Younger (the kid's brother) states that Luna identifies as a girl, that the dad prevents Luna from wearing girl's clothes, and that this makes him (Jude) feel sad
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that Jude Younger (the kid's brother) states that Luna identifies as a girl, that the dad prevents Luna from wearing girl's clothes, and that this makes him (Jude) feel sad: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that James/Luna Younger (the kid) states that she chooses to identify as a girl, that Anne (the mom) lets her choose how to identify and dress, that Jeffrey (the dad) prevents her from wearing girl's clothes, and that she (Luna) is sometimes afraid of Jeffrey
Jasmine Jackson (the DFPS agent) states that James/Luna Younger (the kid) states that she chooses to identify as a girl, that Anne (the mom) lets her choose how to identify and dress, that Jeffrey (the dad) prevents her from wearing girl's clothes, and that she (Luna) is sometimes afraid of Jeffrey: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Custody Evaluator: Identity
Benjamin Albritton (the custody evaluator for Younger and Georgulas) agreed that James/Luna (the kid) had gender dysphoria and identified as a girl
Benjamin Albritton (the custody evaluator for Younger and Georgulas) agreed that James/Luna (the kid) had gender dysphoria and identified as a girl: https://thetexan.news/dallas-custody-battle-over-alleged-transgender-seven-year-old-will-resume-next-week/
Mother: Ideology
Anne Georgulas (the mom) claims she wishes James/Luna (the kid) was not transgender
Anne Georgulas (the mom) claims she did not allow James/Luna (the kid) to wear dresses outside of the home for several years
Anne Georgulas (the mom) claims she did not allow James/Luna (the kid) to wear dresses outside of the home for several years: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Dad: Christianity
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims his religion does not affect his treatment of his children
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims that taking James/Luna (the kid) to school as a girl is against his religious values
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims that taking James/Luna (the kid) to school as a girl is against his religious values: https://youtu.be/FBOazaNV9q0?t=581 If I take him to school, I have to take him as a girl, since it's totally against my religious beliefs to affirm him as a girl, that's against my own understanding of the science, and it's actually just an affront to my common sense, and it's a complete assault on the customs and practices of the people of Texas, which are, we are an ancient people in this country.
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims he wants to teach James/Luna (the kid) about traditional Christian gender norms
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims he wants to teach James/Luna (the kid) about traditional Christian gender norms: https://youtu.be/XExGbV5KIpM?t=304 I cannot try to convince my son that he's a boy. That means I've been unable to teach him traditional Christian teachings on sexuality and gender and I can't let it go to Sunday school because my church pretty much teaches it that way.
Dad: Clothing
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claimed he told CPS that he would allow James/Luna (the kid) to wear boys or girls' clothes
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims he only has boy's clothes, and not girl's clothes, at his house, because he doesn't allow his boys to wear girl's clothes
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims he only has boy's clothes, and not girl's clothes, at his house, because he doesn't allow his boys to wear girl's clothes: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133538/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-10th-Court-Transcript.pdf
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) told Anne (the mother) that he would not send his kid to soccer in girl's clothes
Dad: Haircut
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) admits he violated a court order preventing him from cutting James/Luna's (the kid's) hair without permission of the amicus (neutral) attorney
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) admits he violated a court order preventing him from cutting James/Luna's (the kid's) hair without permission of the amicus (neutral) attorney: http://web.archive.org/web/20191025133528/https://savejames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/TRO-Hearing.pdf
James/Luna (the kid) wore a long-hair Elsa (Frozen character) hat 24/7 at both their mom's house and their dad's house
Dad: Clinic
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims he currently has no problem with the GENECis clinic
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) also delayed meeting with the GENECis clinic for over two years
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims GENECis clinic performs SRS
Jeffrey Younger (the dad) claims GENECis clinic performs SRS: https://youtu.be/XExGbV5KIpM?t=142 The GENECis Clinic, and they do sex change operations on children in Dallas, Texas.
the clinic does not perform SRS
Dad: Donations
GoGetFunding: $92,243
GoFundMe: $47,972
Average divorce cost in Texas with issues with kids: $23,500 over 14 months
Average divorce cost in Texas with issues with kids: $23,500 over 14 months: https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/family-law/divorce/divorce-in-texas.html
Marriage annulled 18 October 2016
Video
the kid was 3.5 years old at the time; they are now 7
the kid was 3.5 years old at the time; they are now 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnLwbu4npp4 transcript:
Jeffrey Younger (dad): You re a boy right?
James/Luna Younger (kid): No, I m a girl.
Dad: Who told you you re a girl?
Kid: Mommy.
Dad: When did she tell you you're a girl?
Kid: I love girls.
Dad: So mommy told you you're a girl?
Kid: Uh-uh [yes].
Dad: Does mommy do anything else like a girl with you?
Kid: Mm-hm [yes].
Dad: Like what?
Kid: Like dresses.
Dad: What does she do?
Kid: Puts them on me.
Dad: She puts dresses on you?
Kid: [nods]
Dad: And what else does she do?
Kid: She buys my headbands. And she gives me hairclips.
Dad: Ok. What else?
Kid: [unclear]
Dad: What else?
Kid: [unclear]
Dad: Does she do anything with your fingers?
Kid: Yeah.
Dad: What?
Kid: She paints my nails.
Dad: Why does she do that?
Kid: Cuz I like nail polish.
Dad: So mommy puts you in a dress and puts nail polish on you. And what does mommy tell you?
Kid: She tells me I'm a girl.
Dad: Do you think you're a girl?
Kid: Uh-huh [yes].
Dad: Is that why you wear this [towel around kid's head], so you can have long hair?
Kid: Mm-hm [yes].
Dad: Ok.
Sex Quality: Orgasm
reaching orgasm is very important for women's sexual satisfaction
Sex Quality: Partner
feeling respected and close to one's partner is very important for sexual satisfaction
being excited by and comfortable with one's partner is very important for sexual satisfaction
Sex Quality: Maps
orgasm rates by country
weekly sex rates by country
exciting sex rates by country
Attraction
both men and women prefer romantic imagery to sexual imagery, but women prefer romantic imagery over sexual imagery moreso than men do (SOS = sexuality, DBLS = romantic)
both men and women prefer romantic imagery to sexual imagery, but women prefer romantic imagery over sexual imagery moreso than men do (SOS = sexuality, DBLS = romantic): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x http://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10508-011-9794-5
bad study -- every female shot is a photo shoot, every male shot is a normal photo ("Happy Guys Finish Last: The Impact of Emotion Expressions on Sexual Attraction")
Happiness
the happiness benefits of additional sex decrease with frequency of sex
the happiness benefits of additional sex decrease with frequency of sex: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550615616462
Veale 2015: worldwide dick size distribution: lower 10% is 10 cm (3.9 in), median 50th is 13 cm (5.1 in), upper 90% is 16 cm (6.3 in)
^ website using Veale data
Happiness
regardless of frequency of sex, romantic relationships result in increased happiness
regardless of frequency of sex, romantic relationships result in increased happiness: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550615616462
Stress
when relationship-havers are stressed, they react more than usual to relationship experiences
when relationship-havers are stressed, they react more than usual to relationship experiences: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-12105-004 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/a0015663
Divorce
reasons people get divorced
Cohabitation
women with prior cohabitation marriages (PC marriage) report higher lifetime rates of violence that lead to physical injury, psychopathology, altered psyche, anger, drug use, or removal from daily activities
women with prior cohabitation marriages (PC marriage) report higher lifetime rates of violence that lead to physical injury, psychopathology, altered psyche, anger, drug use, or removal from daily activities: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-14984-007 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/41603732 n=12,300 women, 702 with partner violence reports
Partner violence includes acts of physical assault (being pushed, grabbed or shoved; being slapped, being choked; having something thrown that could hurt; being hit with something that could hurt; being threatened with or having a knife or gun used; being kicked, bit or hit with a fist; being beaten up), psychological aggression (being threatened to hit with his fist or anything else that could hurt), and sexual coercion (being forced into any sexual activity by being threatened, held down, or hurt in some way).
Casual Sex
among straight single college students of both genders, casual sex in the past month correlated with lower well-being, lower life satisfaction, higher depression, and higher social anxiety
among straight single college students of both genders, casual sex in the past month correlated with lower well-being, lower life satisfaction, higher depression, and higher social anxiety: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2013.772088 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00224499.2013.772088 n=3907, casual sex=whether "during the past 30 days they had sex with someone they knew for less than a week"
among sexually active high school students, after a six-month follow-up, among boys casual sex didn't correlate with psychological well-being, but among girls some categories of casual sex correlated with some categories of lower psychological well-being
among sexually active high school students, after a six-month follow-up, among boys casual sex didn't correlate with psychological well-being, but among girls some categories of casual sex correlated with some categories of lower psychological well-being: https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00224499.2016.1255874 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2016.1255874 n=2304, FWB = "sexual contact with your best friend or a friend", ONS = "sexual contact with an acquaintance or with a stranger"
Makeup
the most (perceived-as) effective romantic makeup methods are communication, apologing, forgiving, spending time together, compromising; men prefer "nice gestures", "giving sexual favors"; women prefer "spending time together", "crying", and "apologizing"
the most (perceived-as) effective romantic makeup methods are communication, apologing, forgiving, spending time together, compromising; men prefer "nice gestures", "giving sexual favors"; women prefer "spending time together", "crying", and "apologizing": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-reconcile-with-a-romantic-partner/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-017-0108-6 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s40806-017-0108-6
successful marriages require paying attention to your partner
successful marriages require paying attention to your partner: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/ These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow up had turn-toward bids 33 percent of the time. Only three in ten of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had turn-toward bids 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, they were meeting their partner s emotional needs.
in the past decade, there's been a substantial decrease (1/6 to 1/3) of men not having sex in a given year
women with low financial and health concerns are more likely to prefer masculine men; women with high financial and health concerns are more likely to reject masculine men
women with low financial and health concerns are more likely to prefer masculine men; women with high financial and health concerns are more likely to reject masculine men: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/attraction-evolved/201712/why-certain-women-prefer-man-whos-more-feminine https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40750-017-0070-3 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s40750-017-0070-3 Factor 1, which we labelled "condition", showed positive loadings for self-rated attractiveness (.88) and self-reported health (.55), as well as a small negative loading for financial worries ( .28); factor 2 showed a positive loading on financial worries (.77), a small negative loading on health ( .25) and a small positive loading on disgust (.23), and was labelled "concerns".
Americans are not much more promiscuous today than they were in the 1940's
beyond the first, additional lifetime sexual partners is not significantly associated with marital happiness (until 10+ partners); the difference between 1 and 2 sexual partners is smaller than the difference caused by a college degree
beyond the first, additional lifetime sexual partners is not significantly associated with marital happiness (until 10+ partners); the difference between 1 and 2 sexual partners is smaller than the difference caused by a college degree: https://twitter.com/NickWolfinger/status/1054462845700558849
very few people have a high number of sexual partners
Demography and Trends Over Time: Uk
most youth in the UK are not purely heterosexual or homosexual
Demography and Trends Over Time: Usa
1/3 of youth inthe USA are not purely heterosexual or homosexual
most Generation Z in the USA are not purely heterosexual or homosexual (small sample size)
Affirmation Improves Gay Lives
same-sex marriage reduces gay suicides
same-sex marriage reduces gay suicides: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/same-sex-marriage-fewer-youth-suicide https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2604258 Among the 762,678 students (mean [SD] age, 16.0 [1.2] years; 366,063 males and 396,615 females) who participated in the YRBSS between 1999 and 2015, a weighted 8.6% of all high school students and 28.5% of students who identified as sexual minorities reported suicide attempts before implementation of same-sex marriage policies. Same-sex marriage policies were associated with a 0.6 percentage point (95% CI, 1.2 to 0.01 percentage points) reduction in suicide attempts, representing a 7% relative reduction in the proportion of high school students attempting suicide owing to same-sex marriage implementation. The association was concentrated among students who were sexual minorities.
Homosexuality and Masculinity-Femininity
women who report greater levels of homosexuality also report higher levels of childhood and adulthood masculinity, and also perform more masculine-ly
women who report greater levels of homosexuality also report higher levels of childhood and adulthood masculinity, and also perform more masculine-ly: https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpspp0000077 https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/pspp0000077
[A]dulthood masculinityfemininity was reported by all 67 women with the 10-item Continuous Gender Identity Scale, which exhibits modest to strong correlates with other measures of reported and observed masculinity-femininity (Rieger et al., 2008; Rieger et al., 2010). Statements included: Most people see me as more masculine than other women and My mannerisms are less feminine than those of other women. Answers were given on 7-point scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Item-reliability (Cronbach s alpha) was .91. Responses to items were averaged and higher scores represented greater masculinity.
Affirmation
self-reported homophobia correlates with risky sexual behavior in black gay men
Mark Regnereus New Family Structures Study (Nfss) Is Bad
Abuse Rates
sexuality (straight, bisexual, gay-lesbian) and intimate partner violence (IPV): differences are only significant between bisexual women and straight women
most abuse rate studies are terrible
most abuse rate studies are terrible: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X03003458 Probably the most difficult methodological obstacle in studying same-sex intimate violence is obtaining a representative sample; even studies based on large samples typically have used nonrandom sampling methods, with respondent recruitment often occurring through gay and lesbian publications, organizations, and activities [6]. Two studies with better methodology reported prevalence estimates of 25% and 17% for ever having experienced physical victimization in a lesbian relationship 12, 13; these figures are comparable to figures for heterosexual relationships.
Causes of Homosexuality
the gay gene doesn't exist
the gay gene doesn't exist: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10508-017-1092-4.pdf However, the search for genes contributing to homosexuality, which started 25 years ago, has been largely unsuccessful. Although a recentlarge genome-wide association study (GWAS) by Sanders et al. (2015) has documented two chromosomal regions associated with male homosexuality (one X-linked, the other on autosome 8), which has resolved some conflicting results obtained from earlier attempts (Bailey et al.,1999; Hamer etal.,1993;Huetal.,1995;Mustanskietal.,2005;Ramagopalan, Dyment, Handunneththi, Rice, & Ebers, 2010; Rice, Anderson, Risch, & Ebers, 1999), both these regions have a small effect sizes and low power in predicting homosexual versus heterosexual orientation. Collectively, GWAS thus indicate that there are nomajor genes contributing to male homosexuality. No comparable studies on female homosexuality exist.
additional older brothers correlates with homosexuality, suggesting homosexuality may be increased by maternal biology
homosexuality may partially be heritable
Removal From the DSM
gay activism, Kinsey's research, and changing beliefs all caused the APA to remove homosexuality from the DSM in 1973 (58% vote)
gay activism, Kinsey's research, and changing beliefs all caused the APA to remove homosexuality from the DSM in 1973 (58% vote): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4695779/
Anal Sex Does Appear to Increase Incontinence
Markland 2016: among 6150 adults in the NHNES, higher reported fecal incontinence correlated with reported anal sex, higher age, depression, and loose stool consistency
Markland 2016: among 6150 adults in the NHNES, higher reported fecal incontinence correlated with reported anal sex, higher age, depression, and loose stool consistency: https://journals.lww.com/ajg/Abstract/2016/02000/Anal_Intercourse_and_Fecal_Incontinence__Evidence.28.aspx https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/ajg.2015.419 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/839630470869811200/markland2016.pdf
After multivariable adjustment for other factors associated with fecal incontinence, anal intercourse remained a predictor of fecal incontinence among women (POR: 1.5; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.0 2.0) and men (POR: 2.8; 95% CI: 1.6 5.0).
Geynisman-Tan 2018: among 1003 women, those who reported having had anal sex also reported higher fecal incontinence
Geynisman-Tan 2018: among 1003 women, those who reported having had anal sex also reported higher fecal incontinence: https://journals.lww.com/jpelvicsurgery/Abstract/2018/05000/Anal_Penetrative_Intercourse_as_a_Risk_Factor_for.10.aspx https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/SPV.0000000000000408 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/839630475219435540/geynisman-tan2017.pdf
Of women who engaged in API, 18% reported it changed their stool consistency, and 10% reported it caused AI. Having engaged in API within the last month was correlated with higher FISI scores (P = 0.05) and with fecal incontinence on the FISI (28.3% vs 14.4%; P = 0.01; odds ratio, 2.48).
Happiness
parents are often less happy than non-parents; most of this is explained by social policies like parental leave and subsidized child care
Punishment
harsh punishments of children in education increase internalization of poor mental health
parent training significantly improves child behavior, but less so for economically disadvantaged families
parent training significantly improves child behavior, but less so for economically disadvantaged families: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735805001169 The results from moderator analyses give insight into pragmatic considerations in using parent training. For example, individually delivered parent training is far superior to group delivered parent training in helping families facing economic disadvantage. Also, there is no support for including supplements to basic parent training and parent training seems to be robust against age effects.
Lestrat 2011: women married below 18 are about 1.3-2.5 times more likely to report symptoms consistent with a battery of psychiatric conditions
Invisible Victims: Delayed Onset Depression Among Adults With Same-Sex Parents
sullins' study
sullins counted any child who ever lived in a household headed by a gay person as a child growing up in a same-sex household -- including single or divorced parents
sullins counted any child who ever lived in a household headed by a gay person as a child growing up in a same-sex household -- including single or divorced parents: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5204108/ Sullins achieves this through a crucial elision between households in which a child spent some time in a home headed by a same-sex couple and families in which a child was actually raised, from birth, by a stable same-sex couple, a situation more auspicious for healthy child development. This conflation of household stability with parent gender fatally mars his conclusions, which are much more damning of gay and lesbian parenting than are warranted by his data. [....] This descriptor, of course, is the key variable in the discourse on optimal child-rearing because of the well-established fact that children who experience divorce or other family disruptions are at higher risk for a number of disadvantages, including the ones that Sullins inaccurately associates with same-sex parented households. What Sullins has done makes no more sense than surveying a hospital to derive mortality rates. It is hard to imagine that Sullins does not know this and equally hard to watch his misleading findings get past peer review.
Gay Parenting
the American Psychological Association believes sexuality is not a significant predictor of parenting outcomes
the American Psychological Association believes sexuality is not a significant predictor of parenting outcomes: http://www.bu.edu/today/2013/gay-parents-as-good-as-straight-ones/ http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2013/03/18/peds.2013-0377.full.pdf On the basis of this comprehensive review of the literature regarding the development and adjustment of children whose parents are the same gender, as well as the existing evidence for the legal, social, and health benefits of marriage to children, the AAP concludes that it is in the best interests of children that they be able to partake in the security of permanent nurturing and care that comes with the civil marriage of their parents, without regard to their parents gender or sexual orientation.
75 studies demonstrate that same-sex couples and different-sex couples produce roughly equivalent children
75 studies demonstrate that same-sex couples and different-sex couples produce roughly equivalent children: https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-wellbeing-of-children-with-gay-or-lesbian-parents/ A 2010 study by Stanford researcher Michael Rosenfeld used census data to examine the school advancement of 3,500 children with same-sex parents, finding no significant differences between households headed by same-sex and opposite-sex parents when controlling for family background. Another study drew on nationally representative, longitudinal data using a sampling pool of over 20,000 children, of which 158 lived in a same-sex parent household. Controlling for family disruptions, those children showed no significant differences from their peers in school outcomes.
in meta-analysis, two dads vs two moms was insignificant
in meta-analysis, two dads vs two moms was insignificant: https://thewinnower.com/papers/3532-knowing-what-we-don-t-know-a-meta-analysis-of-children-raised-by-gay-or-lesbian-parents A third potential explanation, based on theories of gender development (Leaper & Friedman, 2007; McHale, Crouter, & Whiteman, 2003), has to do with the presence of a parent of the same or opposite gender as the child. There was, however, no support for this explanation. Children raised by gay fathers were no different than children raised by lesbian mothers, and the differences associated with parent sexual orientation did not vary between boys and girls.
in meta-analysis, same-sex parents appear to do worse on some indicators (internalizing, externalizing, social competence, academic competence) and better on others (positive relationships, parental warmth), but the data is usually of such poor quality that no reliable conclusions can be drawn (the moderator effects have larger size than the effect size)
in meta-analysis, same-sex parents appear to do worse on some indicators (internalizing, externalizing, social competence, academic competence) and better on others (positive relationships, parental warmth), but the data is usually of such poor quality that no reliable conclusions can be drawn (the moderator effects have larger size than the effect size): https://thewinnower.com/papers/3532-knowing-what-we-don-t-know-a-meta-analysis-of-children-raised-by-gay-or-lesbian-parents
Child Custody and Family Court
over a decade in Wisconsin, mother sole custody went 60% to 46% while equal custody went 16% to 31%
over a decade in Wisconsin, mother sole custody went 60% to 46% while equal custody went 16% to 31%: https://www.irp.wisc.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Task4A_CS_09-11_Final_revi2012.pdf
over two decades in Wisconsin, mother sole custody declined from 80% to 42%, equal custody rose from 5% to 27% of all cases, and father sole custody fell from 11% to 9%
over two decades in Wisconsin, mother sole custody declined from 80% to 42%, equal custody rose from 5% to 27% of all cases, and father sole custody fell from 11% to 9%: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-014-0307-8
91% of custody cases are decided without court involvement, and 70% are decided without a third party
91% of custody cases are decided without court involvement, and 70% are decided without a third party: https://www.liveabout.com/child-custody-there-is-no-gender-bias-during-custody-decisions-3974050 http://archive.is/Osakl 51% agreed on their own 29% settled without third party involvement 11% decided during mediation 5% resolved differences after a custody evaluation 4% went to trial (of the 4% that initiated litigation, only 1.5% actually completed it)
many states are adopting or considering equal or shared custody laws
Child Support
delinquent mothers are more common than delinquent fathers, but impoverished mothers are also more common than impoverished fathers
delinquent mothers are more common than delinquent fathers, but impoverished mothers are also more common than impoverished fathers: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-moms-less-likely-than-dads-to-pay-child-support/ In 2011, 32 percent of custodial fathers didn t receive any of the child support that had been awarded to them, compared with 25.1 percent of custodial mothers.
Paternity Testing
laws are changing
laws are changing: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22Paternity-t.html http://archive.ph/soScg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Parentage_Act https://www.uniformlaws.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=238dfcf5-eb39-47d0-bfb7-d0ea50c52c63&forceDialog=0 In 2002 the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws an influential body of lawyers and judges that proposes model laws drafted a compromise. The proposal would allow the presumed father, the biological father or the mother to challenge the paternity until a child turns 2. The proposal had two goals: to balance the rights of children with those of their presumed fathers and to encourage parentage questions to be raised early in a child s life, before deep bonds are formed. Several states, including Delaware, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, have adopted that model or a variation of it.
Dropout Rates
2017: male high school completion 89.1%, female 90.0%; male bachelor's degree completion 33.7%, female 34.6%
2017: male high school completion 89.1%, female 90.0%; male bachelor's degree completion 33.7%, female 34.6%: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_104.10.asp
2010 starting cohort: male 5-year college completion 52.0%, female 59.0%
2010 starting cohort: male 5-year college completion 52.0%, female 59.0%: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_326.10.asp
college 1970: 41.2% female, 1980: 51.4% female, 1990: 54.5% female, 2000: 56.1% female, 2010: 57.0% female, 2020: 56.7% female
college 1970: 41.2% female, 1980: 51.4% female, 1990: 54.5% female, 2000: 56.1% female, 2010: 57.0% female, 2020: 56.7% female: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_303.10.asp
2016: male high school dropouts 7.1%, female 5.1%; 1970: male high school dropouts 14.2, female 15.7
2016: male high school dropouts 7.1%, female 5.1%; 1970: male high school dropouts 14.2, female 15.7: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_219.70.asp
Work Fatalities
fatality rate by work type
Crime:
females receive significantly lighter sentences than males due to biases in each stage of prosecution
females receive significantly lighter sentences than males due to biases in each stage of prosecution: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002 https://sci-hub.se/10.2139/ssrn.2144002
The Draft
men born in 1953 were the last to face conscription -- in 2019, that's age 66 -- and prosecution for Selective Service System violations were suspended in 1988
men born in 1953 were the last to face conscription -- in 2019, that's age 66 -- and prosecution for Selective Service System violations were suspended in 1988: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#End_of_conscription
congress recently appointed a commission to consider inclusion of women in the draft (or abolishment)
congress recently appointed a commission to consider inclusion of women in the draft (or abolishment): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_on_Military,_National,_and_Public_Service
Intimate Partner Violence
compared with men who experience IPV, women who experience IPV are much more likely to be raped, physically assaulted, and stalked; time from work, suffer more injuries, and are more likely to use the medical, mental, and justice systems
compared with men who experience IPV, women who experience IPV are much more likely to be raped, physically assaulted, and stalked; time from work, suffer more injuries, and are more likely to use the medical, mental, and justice systems: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10778010022181769 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/10778010022181769
Aggression: Meta-Study
Ferguson 2020
Bauserman 1996: reviewing dozens of correlational studies, there was no evidence for a link between sexual aggression and nonviolent pornography use; suggests "social learning" theory
Bauserman 1996: reviewing dozens of correlational studies, there was no evidence for a link between sexual aggression and nonviolent pornography use; suggests "social learning" theory: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15324834basp1804_4 http://sci-hub.se/10.1207/s15324834basp1804_4
Satisfaction: Meta-Study
Wright 2017: across 37 effect sizes with 46524 participants, interpersonal satisfaction (romantic satisfaction and sexual satisfaction) correlated negatively (r=-0.1) with pornography usage frequency
Wright 2017: across 37 effect sizes with 46524 participants, interpersonal satisfaction (romantic satisfaction and sexual satisfaction) correlated negatively (r=-0.1) with pornography usage frequency: https://academic.oup.com/hcr/article-abstract/43/3/315/4670699 http://sci-hub.se/10.1111/hcre.12108 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/849002460394946600/wright2017.pdf
Wright 2017: across 20 effect sizes with 12427 participants, intrapersonal satisfaction (body satisfaction and self satisfaction) was uncorrelated with pornography usage frequency
Relationship Quality: Qualitative
Kohut 2016: positive perceived impacts of porn in relationships were more common than negative; 430 nonrepresentative respondents in a heterosexual relationship gave 3963 responses to 42 open-ended questions; of those responses, researchers categorized 621 as "no negative effects" (the most common), 353 "source of information", 343 "sexual experimentation" 299 "sexual communication", 167 "alternative outlet", 114 "positive affect", 114 "unrealistic expectations", 112 "sexual comfort", and the 103 "decreased interest in sex", 103 "personal insecurity"
Kohut 2016: positive perceived impacts of porn in relationships were more common than negative; 430 nonrepresentative respondents in a heterosexual relationship gave 3963 responses to 42 open-ended questions; of those responses, researchers categorized 621 as "no negative effects" (the most common), 353 "source of information", 343 "sexual experimentation" 299 "sexual communication", 167 "alternative outlet", 114 "positive affect", 114 "unrealistic expectations", 112 "sexual comfort", and the 103 "decreased interest in sex", 103 "personal insecurity": https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-016-0783-6 http://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10508-016-0783-6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/849003098106232882/kohut2016.pdf
Sexism: Correlational
Kohut 2015: among 25047 Americans, relative to nonusers, porn users agreed with significantly fewer sexist statements (that women shouldn't be able to hold positions of power, work outside the home, or get abortions)
Kohut 2015: among 25047 Americans, relative to nonusers, porn users agreed with significantly fewer sexist statements (that women shouldn't be able to hold positions of power, work outside the home, or get abortions): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2015.1023427 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00224499.2015.1023427 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/849002462002151424/kohut2015.pdf
Abbreviations
MC = male circumcision
NMC = neonatal male circumcision
NMC = neonatal male circumcision
VMMC = voluntary male medical circumcision
VMMC = voluntary male medical circumcision
AAP = American Academy of Pediatrics
AAP = American Academy of Pediatrics
BMA = British Medical Association
BMA = British Medical Association
CPS = Canadian Paediatric Society
CPS = Canadian Paediatric Society
CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
UNAIDS = Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
UNAIDS = Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
WHO = World Health Organization
WHO = World Health Organization
Todo
Morris 2019: Critical evaluation of arguments opposing male circumcision: A systematic review
Morris 2019: Critical evaluation of arguments opposing male circumcision: A systematic review https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jebm.12361 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/jebm.12361
Bailis 2019: Critical Evaluation of a Survey Claiming Long-Term Adverse Outcomes from Neonatal Circumcision
Bailis 2019: Critical Evaluation of a Survey Claiming Long-Term Adverse Outcomes from Neonatal Circumcision https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=95051 https://sci-hub.se/10.4236/asm.2019.94006
Scientific Consensus: Organizations in Favor for HIV-AIDS Prevention
list: WHO-UNAIDS, CDC
WHO-UNAIDS 2007
WHO-UNAIDS 2007: https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/rtis/9789241596169/en/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858022145992032256/who2007.pdf
Male circumcision is one of the oldest and most common surgical procedures worldwide, and is undertaken for many reasons: religious, cultural, social and medical. There is conclusive evidence from observational data and three randomized controlled trials that circumcised men have a significantly lower risk of becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
WHO-UNAIDS 2007
WHO-UNAIDS 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/20070514160622/http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/ "
The UN agencies emphasize that male circumcision does not provide complete protection against HIV infection. It should never replace other known effective prevention methods and should always be considered as part of a comprehensive prevention package, which includes correct and consistent use of male or female condoms, reduction in the number of sexual partners, delaying the onset of sexual relations, and HIV testing and counselling.
WHO-UNAIDS 2010
WHO-UNAIDS 2010: http://web.archive.org/web/20090717053711/http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en https://archive.is/euUXa https://www.who.int/hiv/pub/malecircumcision/neonatal_child_MC_UNAIDS.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859919064172331008/who2010.pdf
WHO/UNAIDS recommendations emphasize that male circumcision should be considered an efficacious intervention for HIV prevention in countries and regions with heterosexual epidemics, high HIV and low male circumcision prevalence. Male circumcision provides only partial protection, and therefore should be only one element of a comprehensive HIV prevention package which includes: the provision of HIV testing and counseling services; treatment for sexually transmitted infections; the promotion of safer sex practices; the provision of male and female condoms and promotion of their correct and consistent use.
WHO-UNAIDS 2020
WHO-UNAIDS 2020: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/978-92-4-000854-0 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858780768271859742/who2020.pdf
Since 2007 the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have recommended voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) as an important strategy for the prevention of heterosexually acquired HIV in men in settings where the prevalence of heterosexually transmitted HIV is high. Over 25 million men and adolescent boys in East and Southern Africa have been reached with VMMC services.
CDC 2018: supports parental choice, supports insurance, recommends that medical professionals inform uncircumcised men that circumcision protects against STIs including HIV
CDC 2018: supports parental choice, supports insurance, recommends that medical professionals inform uncircumcised men that circumcision protects against STIs including HIV: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/58456 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859918459936440320/cdc2018.pdf
Scientific Consensus: Organizations in Favor for Parental Choice
list: AAP, BMA, CPS, NIH
AAP 1975 Report of the Ad Hoc Task Force on Circumcision: circumcision is not medically necessary for neonates; therefore, the decision should be left to parents
AAP 1975 Report of the Ad Hoc Task Force on Circumcision: circumcision is not medically necessary for neonates; therefore, the decision should be left to parents: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/56/4/610 https://sci-hub.se/10.0000/pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/56/4/610 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858011039802982400/aap1975.pdf
Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision. In circumstances in which there are potential benefits and risks, yet the procedure is not essential to the child's current well-being, parents should determine what is in the best interest of the child. To make an informed choice, parents of all male infants should be given accurate and unbiased information and be provided the opportunity to discuss this decision. If a decision for circumcision is made, procedural analgesia should be provided.
AAP 1989 Report of the Task Force on Circumcision: circumcision may have medical benefits, but remains an elective procedure that should be left to parents
AAP 1989 Report of the Task Force on Circumcision: circumcision may have medical benefits, but remains an elective procedure that should be left to parents: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/84/2/388 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/84/2/388.full.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858044031971098654/aap1989.pdf
Since the 1975 report, new evidence has suggested possible medical benefits from newborn circumcision. [....] Newborn circumcision has potential medical benefits and advantages as well as disadvantages and risks. When circumcision is being considered, the benefits and risks should be explained to the panents and informed consent obtained.
AAP 1999 Circumcision Policy Statement
AAP 1999 Circumcision Policy Statement: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/103/3/686
Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.
AAP 2012 Circumcision Policy Statement
AAP 2012 Circumcision Policy Statement: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/130/3/585
the procedure s benefits justify access to this procedure for families who choose it.
NIH 2019
NIH 2019: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002998.htm
The merits of circumcision have been debated. Opinions about the need for circumcision in healthy boys vary among health care providers. Some believe there is great value to having an intact foreskin, such as allowing for a more natural sexual response during adulthood. Rather than routinely recommending circumcision for healthy boys, many health care providers allow the parents to make the decision after presenting them with the pros and cons. There is no compelling medical rationale for the procedure in healthy boys, although some boys have a medical condition requiring circumcision.
CPS guidance 2015
CPS guidance 2015: https://www.cps.ca/en/documents/position/circumcision
The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) published a position statement in 1996 stating that circumcision was not recommended as a routine procedure for male newborns because the benefits and harms were evenly balanced.
Because the medical risk:benefit ratio of routine newborn male circumcision is closely balanced when current research is reviewed (Table 1), it is challenging to make definitive recommendations for the entire male newborn population in Canada. For some boys, the likelihood of benefit is higher and circumcision could be considered for disease reduction or treatment.
The CPS does not recommend the routine circumcision of every newborn male.
BMA guidance 1996
BMA guidance 2004
BMA guidance 2004: https://jme.bmj.com/content/30/3/259.full https://sci-hub.se/10.1136/jme.2004.008540 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/860580748892700692/britishmedicalassociation2004.pdf
The medical harms or benefits have not been unequivocally proved except to the extent that there are clear risks of harm if the procedure is done inexpertly. The Association has no policy on these issues. Indeed, it would be difficult to formulate a policy in the absence of unambiguously clear and consistent medical data on the implications of the intervention. As a general rule, however, the BMA believes that parents should be entitled to make choices about how best to promote their children s interests, and it is for society to decide what limits should be imposed on parental choices.
BMA guidance 2006
BMA guidance 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20120824201535/http://bma.org.uk/-/media/Files/PDFs/Practical%20advice%20at%20work/Ethics/Circumcision.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/860581825117683788/bma2006.pdf
The medical harms or benefits have not been unequivocally proven but there are clear risks of harm if the procedure is done inexpertly. The Association has no policy on these issues. Indeed, it would be difficult to formulate a policy in the absence of unambiguously clear and consistent medical data on the implications of the intervention. As a general rule, however, the BMA believes that parents should be entitled to make choices about how best to promote their children s interests, and it is for society to decide what limits should be imposed on parental choices.
BMA guidance 2019
BMA guidance 2019: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/children-and-young-people/non-therapeutic-male-circumcision-toolkit https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/860580414547820564/bma2019.pdf
The BMA has never taken a position in the debate about the acceptability or otherwise of NTMC. Instead, as with other procedures involving children who lack the capacity to consent, we have made clear that those wishing to authorise the procedure for their children need to demonstrate that it is in the child s best interests.
Incidence of Circumcision: United States
CDC 2013: incidence of neonatal circumcision before hospital discharge dropped from ~65% in 1980 to ~55% in 2010; however, this trend is driven entirely by decreases in the West (which is likely due to increasing Hispanic population)
CDC 2013: incidence of neonatal circumcision before hospital discharge dropped from ~65% in 1980 to ~55% in 2010; however, this trend is driven entirely by decreases in the West (which is likely due to increasing Hispanic population): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/circumcision_2013/circumcision_2013.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/circumcision_2013/circumcision_2013.pdf
Note that these estimates do not include circumcisions performed outside the hospital setting (e.g., ritual circumcisions) or those performed at any age following discharge from the birth hospitalization. Thus, these rates cannot be used as prevalence estimates for all male circumcisions in the United States.
Jacobson: among 8.8 million boys in the Kid's Inpatient Database from 2003-2016, circumcision rates varied mostly by region, insurance, and ethnicity, and increased overall slightly from 43.6% in 2003 to 48.9% in 2016
Jacobson: among 8.8 million boys in the Kid's Inpatient Database from 2003-2016, circumcision rates varied mostly by region, insurance, and ethnicity, and increased overall slightly from 43.6% in 2003 to 48.9% in 2016: https://www.auajournals.org/doi/full/10.1097/JU.0000000000001316 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858041287093125140/jacobson2021.pdf
Morris 2014: xxx
Many 2020: xxx
Prevalence of Circumcision: Africa
Cork 2020: map of circumcision prevalence by country, administrative region, and 5km cell
^ Dwyer-Lindgren 2019: map of HIV prevalence by country, administrative region, and 5km cell
Prevalence of Circumcision: Worldwide
WHO 2007: approximately 30-33% of men worldwide are circumcised (data assumes that Jews and Muslims have 100% circumcision rate, then adds nonreligious circumcision)
WHO 2007: approximately 30-33% of men worldwide are circumcised (data assumes that Jews and Muslims have 100% circumcision rate, then adds nonreligious circumcision): https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/rtis/9789241596169/en/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858022145992032256/who2007.pdf
We have estimated the global prevalence of circumcision among males aged 15 years or over by first assuming that all Muslim and Jewish males in this age group are circumcised. Then, using published data from the Demographic and Health Surveys and other sources (13, 53, 54), we estimated the number of non-Muslim and non-Jewish men circumcised in countries with substantial prevalence of nonreligious circumcision (Angola, Australia, Canada, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Philippines, Republic of Korea, South Africa, Uganda, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania and United States of America) (Table 1).
Morris 2016: approximately 37-39% of men worldwide are circumcised (data assumes that, where MC is not measured, Jews and Muslims have 99.9% circumcision rate)
Morris 2016: approximately 37-39% of men worldwide are circumcised (data assumes that, where MC is not measured, Jews and Muslims have 99.9% circumcision rate): https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12963-016-0073-5 https://sci-hub.se/10.1186/s12963-016-0073-5 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858019156444053554/morris2016.pdf
The estimated percentage of circumcised males in each country and territory varies considerably. Based on [CIA population and sex ratio data] and [United Nations population and sex ratio data], global MC prevalence was 38.7 % (95 % confidence interval [CI]: 33.4, 43.9) and 36.7 % (95 % CI: 31.4, 42.0). Approximately half of circumcisions were for religious and cultural reasons. For countries lacking data we assumed 99.9 % of Muslims and Jews were circumcised. If actual prevalence in religious groups was lower, then MC prevalence in those countries would be lower. On the other hand, we assumed a minimum prevalence of 0.1 % related to MC for medical reasons. This may be too low, thereby underestimating MC prevalence in some countries.
Motivation: Mostly Tied to Parental Circumcision Status (Not Valid Reason)
Rediger 2013: the best predictor of whether a child will be circumcised is whether father was circumcised
^ Rediger 2013: this is despite the fact that few respondents (less than 10% of both circumcised nad uncircumcised) explicitly give this as the most important reason
^ Rediger 2013: this is despite the fact that few respondents (less than 10% of both circumcised nad uncircumcised) explicitly give this as the most important reason: https://www.cfp.ca/content/59/2/e110.full https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859911008419840031/rediger2013.pdf
Adverse Events From Neonatal Circumcision
el Bcheraoui 2014: among a sample of 2.3 million males between 2001 to 2014; adverse events (AEs) numbered 5385 for circumcised (5385/1306812 = 0.41%, 1 in 243) and 1100 for uncircumcised (1100/1032948 = 0.011%, 1 in 939) males;
el Bcheraoui 2014: among a sample of 2.3 million males between 2001 to 2014; adverse events (AEs) numbered 5385 for circumcised (5385/1306812 = 0.41%, 1 in 243) and 1100 for uncircumcised (1100/1032948 = 0.011%, 1 in 939) males; https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/1870232 https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.5414 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/857703427353346058/elbcheraoui2014.pdf note: 1 person can have more than 1 AE; 93% were neonatally circumcised; n_circumcised = 1306812, n_uncircumcised = 1032948;
Our data suggest that the rate of AEs associated with newborn circumcision is less than 0.5%. Most important, the incidence of AEs increased substantially when MC occurred after the first year of life. [....] Our findings also suggest that many AEs, such as penile reconstruction, pneumothorax, and infections, occur less frequently in circumcised males, perhaps due to a healthy infant bias: those newborns who undergo MC are more likely to be healthier (and without such disorders) compared with their uncircumcised counterparts. [....] Compared with boys circumcised at younger than 1 year, the incidences of probable AEs were approximately 20-fold and 10-fold greater for males circumcised at age 1 to 9 years and at 10 years or older, respectively.
Neonatal Deaths From Circumcision
NYT 2012: circumcision neonatal deaths are extremely rare; the CDC observed zero circumcision deaths nationwide in 2010
NYT 2012: circumcision neonatal deaths are extremely rare; the CDC observed zero circumcision deaths nationwide in 2010: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/science/benefits-of-circumcision-outweigh-risks-pediatric-group-says.html https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/21508 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf
By one estimate, put forth by Dan Bollinger, a prominent opponent of circumcision, based on his review of infant mortality statistics, about 117 boys die each year as a result of circumcision. That estimate is cited often by critics of routine circumcision but widely disputed by medical professionals. A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency did not keep track of deaths from infant circumcision because they are exceedingly rare. In the agency s last mortality report, which looked at all deaths in the country in 2010, no circumcision-related deaths were found.
AAP 1989: between 1954 and 1989, among ~50 million circumcisions, just three deaths due to male circumcision were reported (yielding 0.06 deaths per million)
AAP 1989: between 1954 and 1989, among ~50 million circumcisions, just three deaths due to male circumcision were reported (yielding 0.06 deaths per million): https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/84/2/388 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/84/2/388.full.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858044031971098654/aap1989.pdf
The exact incidence of postoperative complications is unknown,50 but large series indicate that the rate is low, approximately 0.2% to 0.6%.44,45,51,52 The most common complications are local infection and bleeding. Deaths attributable to newborn dircumcision are rare; there were no deaths in 500 000 circumcisions in New York City52 or in 175 000 circumcisions in US Army hospitals.51 A communication published in 1979 reported one death in the United States due to circumcision in 1973, and the authors' review of the literature during the previous 25 years documented two previous deaths due to this procedure.53
Wiswell 1989: among 1.95 million circumcisions studied between 1970 and 1989, just one death from male circumcision was reported (yielding 0.51 deaths per million)
Wiswell 1989: among 1.95 million circumcisions studied between 1970 and 1989, just one death from male circumcision was reported (yielding 0.51 deaths per million): https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/83/6/1011 https://sci-hub.se/https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/83/6/1011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858006549780103188/wiswell1989.pdf
As previously mentioned, Speert found only one death in a population of more than one-half million circumcised boys. King8 reported 500,000 consecutive neonatal circumcisions performed without fatality. We have reviewed the records of more than 300,000 boys circumcised in US Army hospitals from 1970 to 1986 (unpublished data), and no boys have died as a consequence of the procedure. Finally, there have been no reported deaths due to the operation among more than 650,000 boys circumcised in the state of Texas since 1971 (5. Trevino, Texas Department of Health, Austin, personal communication, March 16, 1987).
Wiswell 1989: among 1.2 million yearly circumcisions, authors assert that no more than 3 deaths from male circumcision occur (yielding 2.5 deaths per million, no data source given)
Wiswell 1989: among 1.2 million yearly circumcisions, authors assert that no more than 3 deaths from male circumcision occur (yielding 2.5 deaths per million, no data source given): https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/83/6/1011 https://sci-hub.se/https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/83/6/1011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858006549780103188/wiswell1989.pdf """Although it has been claimed that there may be as many as several hundred deaths from circumcision in the United States29 each year ( The Phil Donahue Show, NBC Television, June 17, 1987), we can find evidence for no more than two to three deaths per year that can be attributed to the procedure among the more than 1,200,000 boys that are circumcised."
Neonatal Deaths From Circumcision: Bad Studies
Elhaik 2019: male neonatal circumcision (MNC) positively correlates with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths per capita (no controls used, no causality demonstrated)
Elhaik 2019: male neonatal circumcision (MNC) positively correlates with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths per capita (no controls used, no causality demonstrated): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6412606/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/857700806262128701/elhaik2019.pdf
Hiv Infection Rates and Circumcision
Frisch 2013
AAP 2013 response
WHO: circumcision reduces HIV infection
WHO: circumcision reduces HIV infection: https://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/ There is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%.
review of HIV and circumcision
review of HIV and circumcision: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127372/ He made no mention of male circumcision, yet there is now compelling epidemiological evidence from over 40 studies which shows that male circumcision provides significant protection against HIV infection; circumcised males are two to eight times less likely to become infected with HIV.2 Furthermore, circumcision also protects against other sexually transmitted infections, such as syphilis and gonorrhoea,3,4 and since people who have a sexually transmitted infection are two to five times more likely to become infected with HIV,5 circumcision may be even more protective. No new infections occurred among any of the 50 circumcised men over 30 months, whereas 40 of 137 uncircumcised men became infected during this time. Both groups had been given free access to HIV testing, intensive instruction about preventing infection, and free condoms (which were continuously available), but 89% of the men never used condoms, and condom use did not seem to influence the rate of transmission of HIV.
Gao 2021
Yuan 2019
Farley 2020
Sharma 2017
Kennedy 2020
Sti Infection Rates and Circumcision
Neonatal Urinary Tract Infections and Circumcision
Schoen 2000: circumcised males are significantly less likely to get urinary tract infections (UTI): among 20587 males (9668 circumcised and 5225 not) born in 1997 in Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program of Northern California, 2.15% (1 in 47) of uncircumcised males and 0.22% (1 in 445) of circumcised males were diagnosed with a UTI
Schoen 2000: circumcised males are significantly less likely to get urinary tract infections (UTI): among 20587 males (9668 circumcised and 5225 not) born in 1997 in Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program of Northern California, 2.15% (1 in 47) of uncircumcised males and 0.22% (1 in 445) of circumcised males were diagnosed with a UTI: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/105/4/789 https://sci-hub.se/10.1542/peds.105.4.789 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/857722800998187048/schoen2000.pdf
Psychological Harms: Earp Et Al XXX
Miani 2020: xxx
Earp 2017: xxx
Causes: Hostility Towards Women
negative views towards women increase sexual assault: people who increased hostility towards women during college commit more assaults later in college; those who decrease hostility towards women commit less assaults later in college
negative views towards women increase sexual assault: people who increased hostility towards women during college commit more assaults later in college; those who decrease hostility towards women commit less assaults later in college: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4660251/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-says-toxic-masculinity-more-than-alcohol-leads-to-sexual-assault/
antisocial behavior and poor self-control (which are correlated with negative attitudes towards women) are associated with increased sexual assault (though not hostility with women itself)
antisocial behavior and poor self-control (which are correlated with negative attitudes towards women) are associated with increased sexual assault (though not hostility with women itself): https://www.jsad.com/doi/pdf/10.15288/jsad.2017.78.5 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-says-toxic-masculinity-more-than-alcohol-leads-to-sexual-assault/
Prevention
bystander intervention is effective at reducing sexual assaults
bystander intervention is effective at reducing sexual assaults: https://www.jmir.org/2014/9/e203/
False Rape Accusations
discussion of FBI "false rape" or "true rape" statistics
Abortion Restrictions
2017 abortion restrictions by state
Polling on Abortion Restrictions After Dobbs
WSJ 17-25 Aug 2022 n=1313: 10% favor 80% oppose banning abortion in all cases; 25% favor 60% oppose banning abortion after 6 weeks; 30% favor 55% oppose banning abortion after 15 weeks; 15% favor 85% oppose banning travelling to other states to get an abortion
WSJ 17-25 Aug 2022 n=1313: 10% favor 80% oppose banning abortion in all cases; 25% favor 60% oppose banning abortion after 6 weeks; 30% favor 55% oppose banning abortion after 15 weeks; 15% favor 85% oppose banning travelling to other states to get an abortion: https://www.wsj.com/articles/support-for-legalized-abortion-grows-since-dobbs-ruling-wsj-poll-shows-11662210020 https://archive.ph/sW0hy
Polling on Overturning Roe v Wade
NPR 2022: 64% of Americans (and 62% of Independents) opposed overturning Roe v. Wade
Vox 2022: at 24 weeks, 29% say abortion should be legal, 18% say it depends, and 48% say it should be illegal
Vox 2022: at 24 weeks, 29% say abortion should be legal, 18% say it depends, and 48% say it should be illegal: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23167397/abortion-public-opinion-polls-americans
birth control really, really benefits society
birth control really, really benefits society
Frequency of Abortions by Gestational Age
CDC 2021 (for 2019): 99.0% of abortions occurred before week 21; 1.0% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later
CDC 2021 (for 2019): 99.0% of abortions occurred before week 21; 1.0% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm https://archive.ph/P6YQS
CDC 2000 (for 1997): 98.6% of abortions occurred before week 21; 1.4% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later
CDC 2000 (for 1997): 98.6% of abortions occurred before week 21; 1.4% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss4911a1.htm https://archive.ph/2dca
CDC 1996 (for 1992): 98.5% of abortions occurred before week 21; 1.5% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later
CDC 1996 (for 1992): 98.5% of abortions occurred before week 21; 1.5% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00041486.htm https://archive.ph/aS2u
CDC 1975 (for 1972): 98.3% of abortion with known gestational age occurred before week 21; 1.7% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later
CDC 1975 (for 1972): 98.3% of abortion with known gestational age occurred before week 21; 1.7% of abortions occurred at week 21 or later: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/59312 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999169398893969458/cdc1973.pdf
Frequency of Abortions by Gestational Age, Focus on Late Term Abortions
Guttmacher Institute 1997: in 1992, an estimated 320 (0.021%) of 1528930 abortions were conducted after the 26th week
Guttmacher Institute 1997: in 1992, an estimated 320 (0.021%) of 1528930 abortions were conducted after the 26th week: https://web.archive.org/web/20020422172458/http://guttmacher.org:80/pubs/ib14.html
Epner 1998: the above estimate is almost certainly an overestimate, but high-quality data does not exist
Availability of Abortions by Gestational Age
Jones Ingerick Jerman 2018: in 2014, among a nationwide sample of abortion clinics, just ~30% provided services at 20 weeks and just ~15% at 24 weeks
Cost of Abortions by Gestational Age
Jones Ingerick Jerman 2018: later abortions cost more than early abortions: in 2014, among a nationwide sample of abortion clinics, just ~30% provided services at 20 weeks and just ~15% at 24 weeks
Jones Ingerick Jerman 2018: later abortions cost more than early abortions: in 2014, among a nationwide sample of abortion clinics, just ~30% provided services at 20 weeks and just ~15% at 24 weeks: https://www.whijournal.com/article/S1049-3867(17)30536-4/fulltext https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.whi.2017.12.003 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/997242558692466828/jones2018.pdf
In 2014, abortion patients paid an average of $508 for a surgical abortion at 10 weeks gestation, and there were notable differences according to policy climate (Table 4). The unadjusted figures suggest that women in supportive states paid more for a first-trimester surgical procedure than women in hostile states. However, the pattern was reversed when the cost of living adjustment was applied: women paid $40 more in hostile ($442) than in supportive ($402) states. Women in middle-ground states paid the most, regardless of which figure was used. Women paid an average of $535 for an EMA in 2014, $27 more than a first-trimester surgical procedure. According to figures adjusted for cost of living, this procedure cost most in hostile states ($479) and least in supportive ones ($419). On average, women paid $27 more for medication abortion at EMA-only facilities than at facilities that also offered surgical abortion. This pattern was consistent across the three policy climates, ranging from $9 more in hostile states to $35 more in supportive ones (according to the adjusted figures). Abortions at later gestational lengths require greater technical skills and resources, and, in turn, cost more (Hammond & Chasen, 2009, p. 11). In 2014, the median charge for an abortion at 20 weeks gestation was $1,195 (data not shown). Clinics in hostile states charged the most, at $1,350 (adjusted for cost of living), and clinics in supportive states charged the least, at $964; clinics in middle-ground states charged slightly less than hostile states at $1,158.
Viability of Fetuses by Gestational Age: Background
ACOG 2017: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines births between 20 weeks 0 days and 25 weeks 6 days as "periviable"
ACOG 2017: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines births between 20 weeks 0 days and 25 weeks 6 days as "periviable": https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/obstetric-care-consensus/articles/2017/10/periviable-birth
Approximately 0.5% of all births occur before the third trimester of pregnancy, and these very early deliveries result in the majority of neonatal deaths and more than 40% of infant deaths. A recent executive summary of proceedings from a joint workshop defined periviable birth as delivery occurring from 20 0/7 weeks to 25 6/7 weeks of gestation. When delivery is anticipated near the limit of viability, families and health care teams are faced with complex and ethically challenging decisions.
Lau et al 2013: just 0.4% of all births occur before the third trimester of pregnancy (week 27 is 2nd, week 28 is 3rd); these very early births result in the majority of neonatal deaths and 45% of total infant deaths
the youngest preterm baby to ever survive was born at 21 weeks, 1 days
Viability of Fetuses by Gestational Age: Recent Evidence
Rysavy et al 2015: among 4704 births in a national American research hospital network from 2006-2011, a majority of fetuses survived at 24 weeks of pregnancy and a majority survived without severe neurodevelopmental impairment at 26 weeks; NDI assessed at 18 to 22 weeks corrected age, about ~1.4 years after birth
Stoll et al 2010: among 8515 births in a national American research hospital network from 2003-2007, a majority survived at 24 weeks and a majority survived without morbidities at 28 weeks
Viability of Fetuses by Gestational Age: Historical Trends
Mercer 2017: among very preterm births, fetal survival rates have dramatically improved from the 1960's to the 2000's; fetal survival at 26 weeks was ~10% and is now ~90%
Viability of Fetuses by Gestational Age: International Evidence
in most countries, a majority of fetuses survive after 24-25 weeks of pregnancy
in most countries, a majority of fetuses survive after 24-25 weeks of pregnancy: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/139/3/e20161821
in England in 2006, a majority of fetuses survive after 25 weeks of pregnancy
in England in 2006, a majority of fetuses survive after 25 weeks of pregnancy: https://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e7961
Reasons for Why People Have Late-Term Abortions: Primarily Delays in Pregnancy Discovery
Foster Gould Biggs 2021: women who had later abortions were significantly more likely to have discovered their abortion at later gestational ages
Greene Foster Kimport 2013: early abortion discovery is the simplest way to avoid late-term abortions: among 218 women who sought a late-term abortion for non-medical reasons, discovering their pregnancy before <8 weeks was associated with 14.2x lower likelihood of late-term abortion
Greene Foster Kimport 2013: early abortion discovery is the simplest way to avoid late-term abortions: among 218 women who sought a late-term abortion for non-medical reasons, discovering their pregnancy before <8 weeks was associated with 14.2x lower likelihood of late-term abortion: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013 https://sci-hub.se/10.1363/4521013 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999512736843169792/foster2013.pdf
Greene Foster Kimport 2013: among 218 women who sought a late-term abortion for non-medical reasons, 94 of 218 (43%) reported facing any barrier to abortion, including not knowing about the pregnancy, trouble deciding whether to abort, disagreeing with male partner, not knowing where to go, difficulty travelling, difficulty raising money, difficulty securing insurance coverage
Greene Foster Kimport 2013: among 218 women who sought a late-term abortion for non-medical reasons, 94 of 218 (43%) reported facing any barrier to abortion, including not knowing about the pregnancy, trouble deciding whether to abort, disagreeing with male partner, not knowing where to go, difficulty travelling, difficulty raising money, difficulty securing insurance coverage: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013 https://sci-hub.se/10.1363/4521013 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999512736843169792/foster2013.pdf
^ corrigendum: Foster and Kimport 2019: most studies examined late 2nd-trimester abortions (20-28 weeks), which likely have different motivations than third-trimetser abortions (29+ weeks)
^ corrigendum: Foster and Kimport 2019: most studies examined late 2nd-trimester abortions (20-28 weeks), which likely have different motivations than third-trimetser abortions (29+ weeks): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1363/psrh.12114 https://sci-hub.se/10.1363/psrh.12114 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999512580311756830/foster2019.pdf
Our article, which focuses on women seeking abortions from 20 weeks to the end of the second trimester (about 28 weeks), therefore captures most of the women having abortions after 20 weeks. Little is known about the relatively few abortions occurring in the third trimester, although late detection of fetal anomaly1, 2 and increasing incidence of maternal health complications with advanced gestation3 suggest that reasons for abortion in the third trimester may differ from those in the second.
Foster et al 2012: among 1122 women seeking an abortion at one abortion clinic in 2008, 0.6% noted that the pregnancy resulted from rape and 0.6% noted that a fetal anomaly was present
Foster et al 2012: among 1122 women seeking an abortion at one abortion clinic in 2008, 0.6% noted that the pregnancy resulted from rape and 0.6% noted that a fetal anomaly was present: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1363/4411712 https://sci-hub.se/10.1363/4411712 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999514642323882084/foster2012.pdf
Reasons Given by Patients for Abortions in General
the most common reasons cited for abortion are [1] dramatic life change (interfere w/ education/job/dependents), [2] can't afford baby, [3] don't want to be single mother / relationship problems, [4-5] enough children
the most common reasons cited for abortion are [1] dramatic life change (interfere w/ education/job/dependents), [2] can't afford baby, [3] don't want to be single mother / relationship problems, [4-5] enough children: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1931-2393.2005.tb00045.x https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1931-2393.2005.tb00045.x
young and old pregnant women are most likely to have an abortion
young and old pregnant women are most likely to have an abortion: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6713a1.htm
Reasons Given by Patients for Late-Term Abortions
todo
todo
todo
most women who have late-term abortions have a reason to do so
most women who have late-term abortions have a reason to do so: https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2013/11/who-seeks-abortions-or-after-20-weeks https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1363/4521013 http://sci-hub.se/10.1363/4521013
Most women seeking later abortion fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous.
Fetal Anomalies and Their Rates of Occurrence
Forrester and Merz 2005: among 281866 live births in Hawaii from 1986 to 2000, 294 (0.104%, 1 in 958) had congenital hydrocephaly; this did not account for fetal deaths or abortions
Jeng et al 2011: among 5353022 live births in California from 1991 to 2000, 3152 (0.0589%, 1 in 1698) had congenital hydrocephaly; this did not account for fetal deaths or aboritons
Contraceptive Use Before Abortion
54-51% of abortion patients reported using a contraceptive method in the month that they became pregnant
No Effect of Suicide
non-fatal first suicide attempts were no higher after than before abortion, suggesting that abortion does not cause elevated suicide rates among women with abortions
non-fatal first suicide attempts were no higher after than before abortion, suggesting that abortion does not cause elevated suicide rates among women with abortions: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30400-6/fulltext https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/S2215-0366(19)30400-6
Mortality Rate From Abortion
Epner 1998: abortion fatality rates from 1974-1987 rose from 28.1 per 100k at 13-15 weeks, 103 per 100k at 16-20 weeks, and 274 per 100k at >=21 weeks
between 2008 and 2014, abortion killed 0.62 per 100,000. in 2014, pregnancy killed 23.8 per 100,000 -- 23.8/0.62=38.39x times higher
between 2008 and 2014, abortion killed 0.62 per 100,000. in 2014, pregnancy killed 23.8 per 100,000 -- 23.8/0.62=38.39x times higher: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6713a1.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States
Poland
before illegalization in 1990, Poland had about 100-200,000 abortions per year (adjust this to live births)
before illegalization in 1990, Poland had about 100-200,000 abortions per year (adjust this to live births): http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-poland.html
A poll of Polish women suggests lifetime abortion rates of 1/3-1/4 (compared to 1/4 in the USA)
A poll of Polish women suggests lifetime abortion rates of 1/3-1/4 (compared to 1/4 in the USA): https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2013/K_060_13.PDF W ci gu swojego ycia ci przerwa a, z du ym prawdopodobie stwem, nie mniej ni co czwarta, ale te nie wi cej ni co trzecia doros a Polka. W skali ca ego spo ecze stwa daje to od 4,1 do 5,8 mln kobiet. [Not less than 1/4 but not more than 1/3 of adult Polish women have interrupted their pregnancy during their life, with high probability. On the scale of the whole society this gives between 4.1 and 5.8 million women.] http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/uslifetimeab.html Summary: It is estimated here that, as of 2008, about 28% of U.S. women ages 15-64 have had abortions. This figure has risen from 2.8% in 1973 to 11% in 1980, 19% in 1987, 24% in 1994, and 27% in 2001. In 2008, of women ages 40-55, about 40% have had abortions in their lifetimes.
studies by the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning provide similar estimates of 1/4 lifetime exposure and yearly counts of 100,000+
studies by the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning provide similar estimates of 1/4 lifetime exposure and yearly counts of 100,000+: https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/138222/thesis_Ewa_Hirvonen.pdf?sequence=1 http://wyborcza.pl/7,87648,20314186,zasadzka-na-anestezjologa.html http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,8300922,Polskie_aborcje_w_klinikach_calej_Europy.html For instance Wanda Nowicka, head of the Federation for Women and Family Planning, estimated in 2010 that approximately 80 000-200 000 Polish women terminate unintended pregnancies every year. According to her, 10-15% of these abortions are induced abroad. (Dubrowska 2010.) This estimation would mean that up to 30 000 Polish women travel each year abroad to seek abortion. According to the latest estimations of the Federation for Women and Family Planning (2016), over 100 000 abortions are induced every year in Poland, meaning that every fourth Polish woman has experienced an abortion.
Banning Increases Maternal Death
worldwide, more liberal abortion laws are correlated with lower maternal death rates from abortion
worldwide, more liberal abortion laws are correlated with lower maternal death rates from abortion: https://www.who.int/gho/women_and_health/diseases_risk_factors/situation_trends_unsafe_abortion/en/
in the UK, the legalization of abortion in 1968 was followed by dramatically reduced illegal abortion maternal deaths
in the UK, the legalization of abortion in 1968 was followed by dramatically reduced illegal abortion maternal deaths: https://cmfblog.org.uk/2012/06/17/how-many-women-really-died-from-abortions-prior-to-the-abortion-act/
in 1995, 41% were feminists, 35% nonfeminists, and 8% antifeminists; in 2015, 47% were feminists (+6), 40% nonfeminists (+5), and 4% antifeminists (-4)
Gender Pay Gap
being a mother costs women a portion of their income, but being a father is free
being a mother costs women a portion of their income, but being a father is free: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24219.pdf
Economic
gender-diverse companies are more successful than gender-homogenous
gender-diverse companies are more successful than gender-homogenous: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1548051813504460
Health
FEMINISM makes you SLEEP HARDER :sleeping: :sleeping_accommodation: :sleeping
Genuine Preference: Gender Equality
more gender-equal societies have a smaller % STEM graduates who are women
more gender-equal societies have a smaller % STEM graduates who are women: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617741719 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0956797617741719 Thus, even when girls absolute science scores were higher than those of boys, as in Finland, boys were often better in science relative to their overall academic average. Similarly, girls might have scored higher than boys in science, but they were often even better in reading. Critically, the magnitude of these sex differences in personal academic strengths and weaknesses was strongly related to national gender equality, with larger differences in more gender-equal nations. These intraindividual differences in turn may contribute, for instance, to parental beliefs that boys are better at science and mathematics than girls (Eccles & Jacobs, 1986; Gunderson, Ramirez, Levine, & Beilock, 2012). We also found that boys often expressed higher selfefficacy, more joy in science, and a broader interest in science than did girls. These differences were also larger in more gender-equal countries and were related to the students personal academic strength.
^studies using the implicit association test to refute this study have really, really bad sample selection bias
^studies using the implicit association test to refute this study have really, really bad sample selection bias: http://d-miller.github.io/assets/MillerEaglyLinn2015.pdf "Women s Representation in Science Predicts National Gender-Science Stereotypes: Evidence From 66 Nations": Participants found the Project Implicit website mainly through links from other websites, media coverage, search engines, and word of mouth (Nosek et al., 2002). The website was available in 17 different languages and hosted on various web servers across the world. Participants choose the gender-science task from a list of five to 12 topics (e.g., implicit age attitudes, implicit racial attitudes). Participants therefore self-selected into the sample by having Internet access, learning about the Project Implicit website, visiting the website, and choosing the gender-science task. The Results and Limitations sections consider the influence of possible self-selection biases. https://www.pnas.org/content/106/26/10593 "National differences in gender science stereotypes predict national sex differences in science and math achievement"
Reiches 2020: alt explanations todo
Socialism and Gender Equality in Stem
Quartz 2019
Quartz 2019: https://qz.com/1746284/socialist-countries-employ-more-women-in-math-and-science/
But what explains these stark differences? Eastern Bloc countries once celebrated the equality of men and women as one of the unique products of building a socialist society, in no small part because socialist countries faced severe labor shortages after WWI in the USSR and after WWII throughout the Soviet Bloc. As a result, socialist countries began training women in science and engineering well before Western countries. For instance, 43% of Romanian students enrolled in engineering institutes were women in 1970, as were 39% of all engineering students in the USSR and 27% of students in Bulgaria. Compare these percentages to the United States, where by 1976 women earned only 3% of bachelor s degrees in engineering.
Breda et al 2020: according to surveys of children, higher-GDP countries have stronger stereotypes that boys should do math;
Lippmanna and Senik 2018: girls in the former East Germany are significantly more likely to have high competitiveness in mathematics, which results in much lower gender gaps in overall math competitiveness
Lippmanna and Senik 2018: girls in the former East Germany are significantly more likely to have high competitiveness in mathematics, which results in much lower gender gaps in overall math competitiveness: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596718302476 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jce.2018.07.013 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/997386090094796861/lippman2018.pdf
Lippmanna and Senik 2018: the gender math performance gap is much smaller in former socialist European countries (and Nordic countries); this fact can explain 56.3% of the math performance gap
Lippmanna and Senik 2018: the gender math performance gap is much smaller in former socialist European countries (and Nordic countries); this fact can explain 56.3% of the math performance gap: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596718302476 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jce.2018.07.013 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/997386090094796861/lippman2018.pdf
Table 9 displays a more systematic analysis of this East-West difference. Controlling for country and year fixed-effects, as well as the usual socio-demographic controls, the average gender gap in math is of 16 points, where the sample s average score is of 500. Students from former socialist countries do not score differently, in average, than the rest of the sample. However, girls from these countries score 9 points above their Western counterpart, i.e. they close more than half of the gender gap (conditional on coming from a former socialist country).
Genuine Preference: Personality Tests
sex differences in Big Five personality traits and occupational preferences were mostly consistent across countries, with more gender-equal countries actually having *higher* variation in agreeableness
sex differences in Big Five personality traits and occupational preferences were mostly consistent across countries, with more gender-equal countries actually having *higher* variation in agreeableness: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-008-9380-7 http://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10508-008-9380-7
data from Swedish male-female twins suggests that male and female distributions of personality on the Big Five are ~1 standard deviation apart and that genetics explains ~1/3 of these differences; prenatal hormones also probably affect these differences
data from Swedish male-female twins suggests that male and female distributions of personality on the Big Five are ~1 standard deviation apart and that genetics explains ~1/3 of these differences; prenatal hormones also probably affect these differences: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-human-genetics/article/individual-differences-in-personality-masculinityfemininity-examining-the-effects-of-genes-environment-and-prenatal-hormone-transfer/C5C72DBFD24FA1E7D9B460B9047F43FC/core-reader http://sci-hub.se/10.1017/thg.2016.8
On average, males scored 1.09 standard deviations higher on the discriminant score than females, indicating a large effect size (males Mean = 0.64 [SD = 1.01], females Mean=-0.45 [SD = 0.99]). The canonical correlation between participants sex and the discriminant score was 0.47, indicating that the personality items combined can explain 22% of the group membership (Wilks Lambda = 0.78, p < .001). Based on the discriminant function, the sex of 72% of participants could be correctly classified.
Males with a male co-twin scored on average 0.61 (SD = 1.00) and males with a female-co-twin 0.70 (SD = 1.01) on the derived M-F personality scale. Females with a female co-twin scored on average -0.49 (SD = 0.99) and females with a male-co-twin -0.38 (SD = 1.01). So, both male and female participants from opposite-sex pairs scored significantly higher on the M-F personality scale (both approximately 0.1 SD more masculine) than did males and females from same-sex pairs.
[B]road-sense heritability estimates are 35% for males and 33% for females. Also, we found some evidence for non-additive genetic influences, especially for females. The majority of the variance in the derived personality score can be explained by residual influences, including non-shared environmental influences and measurement error.
Genuine Preference: Biology
females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) who cannot produce androgen (a sex hormone) were shifted towards male preferences on the "things-people" scale
females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) who cannot produce androgen (a sex hormone) were shifted towards male preferences on the "things-people" scale: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/
The results support the hypothesis that sex differences in occupational interests are due, in part, to prenatal androgen influences on differential orientation to objects versus people. Compared to unaffected females, females with CAH reported more interest in occupations related to Things versus People, and relative positioning on this interest dimension was substantially related to amount of prenatal androgen exposure. Females with CAH scored in between males and typical females on the Things-People dimension; their intermediate score might reflect a dose effect of prenatal androgen or the feminizing effects of socialization or other biological factors related to XX karyotype.
Social Conditioning
performing gender may cause hormone differences (rather than the reverse)
performing gender may cause hormone differences (rather than the reverse): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4653185/ Using a novel experimental design, participants (trained actors) performed a specific type of competition (wielding power) in stereotypically masculine vs. feminine ways. We hypothesized in H1 (stereotyped behavior) that wielding power increases testosterone regardless of how it is performed, vs. H2 (stereotyped performance), that wielding power performed in masculine but not feminine ways increases testosterone. We found that wielding power increased testosterone in women compared with a control, regardless of whether it was performed in gender-stereotyped masculine or feminine ways. Results supported H1 over H2: stereotyped behavior but not performance modulated testosterone. These results also supported theory that competition modulates testosterone over masculinity. Our findings thus support a gender testosterone pathway mediated by competitive behavior. Accordingly, cultural pushes for men to wield power and women to avoid doing so may partially explain, in addition to heritable factors, why testosterone levels tend to be higher in men than in women: A lifetime of gender socialization could contribute to sex differences in testosterone. Our experiment opens up new questions of gender testosterone pathways, highlighting the potential of examining nature/nurture interactions and effects of socialization on human biology.
Solutions
extra-curricular STEM programs significantly increase STEM interest for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers all races and genders
extra-curricular STEM programs significantly increase STEM interest for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers all races and genders: https://ijemst.net/index.php/ijemst/article/view/109/110
Sexism: Bias [Unformatted, Unread]
researchers demonstrated a general evaluative bias against women
researchers demonstrated a general evaluative bias against women
researchers found evidence for discrimination against ethnic minorities and women relative to Caucasian men
researchers found evidence for discrimination against ethnic minorities and women relative to Caucasian men https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797611434539
faculty members rated the male candidates as both more competent and more hirable than the females candidate, despite applications being otherwise identical
faculty members rated the male candidates as both more competent and more hirable than the females candidate, despite applications being otherwise identical https://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474
men are favored in some domains, such as tenure rates in biology, but the majority of domains were gender-fair
men are favored in some domains, such as tenure rates in biology, but the majority of domains were gender-fair https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1529100614541236
Sexism: Hiring [Unformatted, Unread]
negative stereotypes about women's quantitative abilities may lead people to devalue their work or discourage these women from continuing in STEM fields
negative stereotypes about women's quantitative abilities may lead people to devalue their work or discourage these women from continuing in STEM fields http://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6008/1234
job advertisements for male-dominated careers tended to use more agentic words (or words denoting agency, such as "leader" and "goal-oriented") associated with male stereotypes
job advertisements for male-dominated careers tended to use more agentic words (or words denoting agency, such as "leader" and "goal-oriented") associated with male stereotypes https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0022530
Social Role Theory, proposed in 1991, states that men are expected to display agentic qualities and women to display communal qualities.
Social Role Theory, proposed in 1991, states that men are expected to display agentic qualities and women to display communal qualities. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167291173011
women tended to be described in more communal terms and men in more agentic terms in letters of recommendation. These researchers also found that communal characteristics were negatively related to hiring decisions in academia.
women tended to be described in more communal terms and men in more agentic terms in letters of recommendation. These researchers also found that communal characteristics were negatively related to hiring decisions in academia. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0016539
Sexism: Harassment [Unformatted, Unread]
three-quarters of women students and residents were harassed at least once during their medical training
three-quarters of women students and residents were harassed at least once during their medical training: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/495540
Nonadvancement [Unformatted, Unread]
In engineering and science education, women made up almost 50 percent of non-tenure track lecturer and instructor jobs, but only 10 percent of tenured or tenure-track professors in 1996. In addition, the number of female department chairs in medical schools did not change from 1976 to 1996
In engineering and science education, women made up almost 50 percent of non-tenure track lecturer and instructor jobs, but only 10 percent of tenured or tenure-track professors in 1996. In addition, the number of female department chairs in medical schools did not change from 1976 to 1996 https://doi.org/10.2527%2F1996.74112843x
Older Data Outdated [Unformatted, Unread]
psychologists and economists conducted extensive analyses of national data and concluded that the state of women in STEM has changed greatly in the past two decades and any conclusions about their status based on data prior to 2000 are likely to be outdated. In general, they concluded that women had very sizable gains in academic science, including remuneration, promotion, and job satisfaction.
psychologists and economists conducted extensive analyses of national data and concluded that the state of women in STEM has changed greatly in the past two decades and any conclusions about their status based on data prior to 2000 are likely to be outdated. In general, they concluded that women had very sizable gains in academic science, including remuneration, promotion, and job satisfaction. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1529100614541236
Lack of Role Models [Unformatted, Unread]
research has indicated this is not the case that more female role models would encourage more women to enter fields dominated by men
research has indicated this is not the case that more female role models would encourage more women to enter fields dominated by men: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550611405218
Sexism: Teachers [Unformatted, Unread]
student-teacher interactions affect girls' engagement with STEM
student-teacher interactions affect girls' engagement with STEM https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sce.20208
student-teacher interactions affect girls' engagement with STEM
student-teacher interactions affect girls' engagement with STEM
student-teacher interactions affect girls' engagement with STEM https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000253479
Underconfidence [Unformatted, Unread]
women steer away from STEM fields because they believe they are not qualified for them; the study suggested that this could be fixed by encouraging girls to participate in more mathematics classes.
women steer away from STEM fields because they believe they are not qualified for them; the study suggested that this could be fixed by encouraging girls to participate in more mathematics classes. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/27/new_study_into_lack_of_women_in_tech_its_not_the_mens_fault/?mt=1437990843635
A lack of opportunities in STEM fields could lead to a loss of self-esteem in math and science abilities, and low self-esteem could prevent people from entering science and math fields.
A lack of opportunities in STEM fields could lead to a loss of self-esteem in math and science abilities, and low self-esteem could prevent people from entering science and math fields. https://doi.org/10.2527%2F1996.74112843x
Out of STEM-intending students, 35% of women stated that their reason for leaving calculus was due to lack of understanding the material, while only 14% of men stated the same.[105] The study reports that this difference in reason for leaving calculus is thought to develop from women's low level of confidence in their ability, and not actual skill. This study continues to establish that women and men have different levels of confidence in their ability and that confidence is related to how individual's performance in STEM fields.
Out of STEM-intending students, 35% of women stated that their reason for leaving calculus was due to lack of understanding the material, while only 14% of men stated the same.[105] The study reports that this difference in reason for leaving calculus is thought to develop from women's low level of confidence in their ability, and not actual skill. This study continues to establish that women and men have different levels of confidence in their ability and that confidence is related to how individual's performance in STEM fields. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0157447
It was seen in another study that when men and women of equal math ability were asked to rate their own ability, women will rate their own ability at a much lower level.[106]
It was seen in another study that when men and women of equal math ability were asked to rate their own ability, women will rate their own ability at a much lower level.[106] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00675.x
Programs with the purpose to reduce anxiety in math or increase confidence have a positive impact on women continuing their pursuit of a career in the STEM field.[107]
Programs with the purpose to reduce anxiety in math or increase confidence have a positive impact on women continuing their pursuit of a career in the STEM field.[107] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/for-girls-in-stem-belongi_1_b_4394592
Divorce Necessary: Conflict Bad
high-conflict married families were just as likely to have negative outcomes as were single mothers
high-conflict married families were just as likely to have negative outcomes as were single mothers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930824/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2010.03.002 Despite caveats concerning potential underestimates of conflict, we find that children from high conflict married-parent families do more poorly in the domains of schooling and substance use, and are at greater risk of early family formation and dissolution, relative to children from low conflict married-parent families. In half of our outcomes, high conflict, stepfather, and single-mother families are statistically indistinguishable in their associations with young adult well-being. [....] Compared to those from low conflict married-parent families, the risks of each of our family-related transitions are anywhere from 25% to upwards of 100% greater for children from high conflict married-parent, stepfather, and single-mother families (not statistically significant in the case of high conflict married-parent families and early cohabitation). Risks also tend to be greater for children from stepfather and single-mother families, relative to children from high conflict married-parent families, although differences are not consistently statistically significant (see key contrasts ).
mothers who are single by choice (rather than separation, divorce, death, etc.) had insignificantly different parenting outcomes from married mothers, except that single mothers had less-frequent "battles" with children
mothers who are single by choice (rather than separation, divorce, death, etc.) had insignificantly different parenting outcomes from married mothers, except that single mothers had less-frequent "battles" with children: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4886836/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1037/fam0000188 There were no differences in parenting quality between family types apart from lower mother child conflict in solo mother families. Neither were there differences in child adjustment. Perceived financial difficulties, child s gender, and parenting stress were associated with children s adjustment problems in both family types. The findings suggest that solo motherhood, in itself, does not result in psychological problems for children.
Weak Effect: Crime
the rate of single motherhood *today* has a large, significant positive correlation with crime -- but single motherhood *18 years ago* had a small, significant negative correlation with crime
the rate of single motherhood *today* has a large, significant positive correlation with crime -- but single motherhood *18 years ago* had a small, significant negative correlation with crime: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1069397104267479 Regression analyses that controlled for masculinity of the population (sex ratio of 15- to 64-year-olds) and national wealth (log gross national product, GNP, per capita) found that current single parenthood ratios were strongly and consistently predictive of violent crimes, whereas single parenthood ratios 18 years ago were not. [....] Even more remarkable were the regression results, in which a large positive effect of 1991 illegitimacy ratios on all violent-crime measures was produced. None of the regressions produced a positive relationship between 1972 illegitimacy ratios and crime, providing a remarkably clear rejection of the parental investment hypothesis in favor of the mating competition prediction.
Weak Effect: Variety
single parenthood explained just 1% of the variation of adult outcomes
single parenthood explained just 1% of the variation of adult outcomes: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/482426 In agreement with much previous research into the effects of single parenthood on children, increasing exposure to a single-parent family in childhood was associated with increasing risks of later anxiety, poorer educational and economic outcomes, and criminal offending. However, these associations were rather weak, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.01 to 0.22 (median, 0.10). These results imply that, typically, variation in exposure to single parenthood accounted for about 1% of the variation in outcomes in adulthood. These statistics reflected the facts that (1) most of those exposed to single parenthood did not develop later difficulties and (2) many of those developing later difficulties were not exposed to single parenthood.
anxiety disorder rates, university degree rates, welfare dependence, income, arrest or conviction rates, and property or violence offences were insignificantly correlated with single motherhood
anxiety disorder rates, university degree rates, welfare dependence, income, arrest or conviction rates, and property or violence offences were insignificantly correlated with single motherhood: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/482426 Table 2 shows that, when due allowance was made for social and contextual factors associated with single parenthood, the duration of exposure to single parenthood during childhood was largely unrelated to later outcomes. There were only 2 possible exceptions to this trend; after adjustment, significant associations (P < .05) remained between exposure to single parenthood and later anxiety disorder and welfare dependence. At the same time, given the many comparisons made in Table 2, these associations could be due to chance variation as a result of multiple tests of significance. To address this issue, a Bonferroni-adjusted38P value (P < .007) was used to correct for multiple (n = 7) tests of significance. In this instance, the adjusted associations between exposure to single parenthood and later anxiety disorder and between single parenthood and welfare dependence were not statistically significant (P > .007) using the Bonferroni correction.
list of articles about human rights in North Korea
Summary
North Korean ballots have only one candidate listed, who is chosen by the government. Voters can either cast the unmarked ballot to vote for the candidate or mark the ballot to vote against the candidate.
North Korean ballots have only one candidate listed, who is chosen by the government. Voters can either cast the unmarked ballot to vote for the candidate or mark the ballot to vote against the candidate.
North Korean Official: Each Ballot Has Just One Candidate Whose Name Must Be Crossed Off
Deputy Secretary General Li, speaking to the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Pyongyang 1991
Deputy Secretary General Li, speaking to the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Pyongyang 1991: https://www.asgp.co/node/29454 https://archive.ph/wip/AbQfm http://www.asgp.info/Resources/Data/Documents/CJOZSZTEPVVOCWJVUPPZVWPAPUOFGF.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/965091141965991956/cpi1992.pdf
While candidates could be nominated by anyone, it was the practice for all candidates to be nominated by the parties. These nominations were examined by the United Reunification Front and then by the Central Electoral Committee, which allocated candidates to seats. The candidate in each seat was then considered by the electors in meetings at the workplace or similar, and on election day the electors could then indicate approval or disapproval of the candidate on the ballot paper.
^ not digitized here
note that tankies may argue the above are the result of voter's meetings -- this does not align with above statement, and requires one to believe that over the course of three decades 89% of people would consistently choose one party to represent them
note that tankies may argue the above are the result of voter's meetings -- this does not align with above statement, and requires one to believe that over the course of three decades 89% of people would consistently choose one party to represent them: https://web.archive.org/web/20090223164816/http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2009/200902/news18/20090218-01ee.html
this 2009 article argues that North Korean elections used to have a black (against) and white (for) box, but I can find no supporting evidence
this 2009 article argues that North Korean elections used to have a black (against) and white (for) box, but I can find no supporting evidence: https://web.archive.org/web/20090313020349/http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/03/10/200903100052.asp
Pictures of Ballots: Each Ballot Has Just One Candidate
picture of 2019 ballot, front and back, for SPA
picture of 2019 ballot, front and back, for SPA: https://www.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/201903101917389449 https://archive.ph/bqvoT Front: "Delegate to the Supreme People's Assembly Election Ballot" [ ], Back: "Candidate Name: Jil Geum-sun" [ ]
picture of three 2015 ballots, front, for Supreme, Provincial, and County people's assemblies
picture of three 2015 ballots, front, for Supreme, Provincial, and County people's assemblies: https://blog.naver.com/PostView.naver?blogId=gounikorea&logNo=221000660982 https://archive.ph/Zv1ph Left: "Delegate to the Supreme People's Assembly Election Ballot" [ ], Center: "Delegate to the Provincial People's Assembly Election Ballot" [ ], Right: "Delegate to the County People's Assembly Election Ballot" [ ]
Turnout and Assent Near Universal: Official Reporting
Mansourov 2015: every North Korean local election from 1999 to 2015 was officially reported to have 99.8% or higher turnout and to have 100% support for each candidate
Mansourov 2015: every North Korean local election from 1999 to 2015 was officially reported to have 99.8% or higher turnout and to have 100% support for each candidate: https://www.38north.org/2015/08/amansourov080615/
Comparison
this is *almost exactly* the "democratic" electoral system used by Fascist Italy
this is *almost exactly* the "democratic" electoral system used by Fascist Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_Italian_general_election
National Elections Over Time: Wikipedia
2003
National Elections Over Time: Kcna
search
KCNA & Choson Sinbo 2019: 682 Democratic Front seats (); 5 Korean Residents in Japan seats (); 99.91% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
KCNA 2014: 686 Democratic Front seats (); 99.97% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
KCNA 2009: 687 Democratic Front seats (); 99.98% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
KCNA 2009: 687 Democratic Front seats (); 99.98% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates: https://web.archive.org/web/20090313001507/http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2009/200903/news09/20090309-15ee.html
KCNA 2003: 687 Democratic Front seats (); 99.9% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
KCNA 1998
National Elections Over Time: International Parliamentary Union
2014: 607 WPK seats (); 50 KSDP seats (); 22 Chondoist seats; 8 independent seats (); turnout 99.97%
2014: 607 WPK seats (); 50 KSDP seats (); 22 Chondoist seats; 8 independent seats (); turnout 99.97%: http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2085_E.htm
2009: 606 WPK seats (); 50 KSDP seats (); 22 Chondoist seats; 3 independent seats (); 6 Korean Residents in Japan seats; turnout 99.98%
2009: 606 WPK seats (); 50 KSDP seats (); 22 Chondoist seats; 3 independent seats (); 6 Korean Residents in Japan seats; turnout 99.98%: http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2085_09.htm
2003: 687 Democratic Front seats: turnout 99.9%
1990: 601 WPK seats (); 51 KSDP seats (); 22 Chondoist seats; 13 independent seats(); turnout 99.87%
1990: 601 WPK seats (); 51 KSDP seats (); 22 Chondoist seats; 13 independent seats(); turnout 99.87%: http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2085_90.htm
Earlier Elections: Wikipedia and Nohlen
Nohlen Grotz Hartmann 2001: seat distributions by party were available for 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1990, and 1998; seat distributions by party could not be obtained for 1977, 1982, or 1986
Nohlen Grotz Hartmann 2001: seat distributions by party were available for 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1990, and 1998; seat distributions by party could not be obtained for 1977, 1982, or 1986: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/417537440 https://u1lib.org/book/868073/3f1db7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/998123725947945070/nohlen2001.pdf
Local Elections Over Time
2011: 99.97% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
2007: 99.82% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
2003: 99.9% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
1999: 99.9% turnout, 100% of ballots cast for Democratic Front candidates
Summary
The most important document in North Korea is the Ten Principles, which citizens have to learn and possibly memorize, and which is de facto superior even to the Constitution. The document outlines the expectations that citizens have absoute loyalty to the Kim family and Juche or Kim-Il-sung-Kim-Jong-ilist ideology.
The most important document in North Korea is the Ten Principles, which citizens have to learn and possibly memorize, and which is de facto superior even to the Constitution. The document outlines the expectations that citizens have absoute loyalty to the Kim family and Juche or Kim-Il-sung-Kim-Jong-ilist ideology.
History
the document went through two versions: the 1974 version "Ten Principles for Establishing the Party's Single-Ideology System" [ 10 ] was announced by Kim Il-sung in 1967 and published by Kim Jong-il in 1974 before consolidating power in 1980; the 2013 version "Ten Principles for Establishing the Party's Single-Leadership System" [ 10 ] was announced
the document went through two versions: the 1974 version "Ten Principles for Establishing the Party's Single-Ideology System" [ 10 ] was announced by Kim Il-sung in 1967 and published by Kim Jong-il in 1974 before consolidating power in 1980; the 2013 version "Ten Principles for Establishing the Party's Single-Leadership System" [ 10 ] was announced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Principles_for_the_Establishment_of_a_Monolithic_Ideological_System
in 1967, Kim Il-Sung purged the Kapsang Faction (which wanted economic reforms, to reduce the personality cult, and appoint one of its own as Kim's successor) and established the Ten Principles to cement his leaderist role
in 1967, Kim Il-Sung purged the Kapsang Faction (which wanted economic reforms, to reduce the personality cult, and appoint one of its own as Kim's successor) and established the Ten Principles to cement his leaderist role: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-1967-purge-the-gapsan-faction-and-establishment-the-monolithic-ideological-system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapsan_Faction_Incident
Lim 2018
Lim 2018: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Leader_Symbols_and_Personality_Cult_in_N/pcwqBwAAQBAJ
Symbolically speaking, it is apt to describe North Korea as a "leader state." By regulating North Koreans through the use of the Ten Principles, and monopolizing their socialization possibilities through creating an isolated social setting, the North Korean state can guarantee the stable functioning of its cult system.
Green 2012: the Ten Principles seems to supercede the constitution, according to emigrants
Green 2012: the Ten Principles seems to supercede the constitution, according to emigrants: https://sinonk.com/2012/06/05/chris-green-on-10-principles/ https://archive.ph/Q9zxq
Regardless, as a result of this shortsightedness there are many North Korea experts and students who have seemingly now forgotten that looking at North Korea only through the materials officially disseminated by the North Korean authorities will not provide all, or indeed most, of the answers. This includes the Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People s Republic of Korea, for the country only has one constitution, and it is the Ten Principles.
Daily NK 2013
Daily NK 2013: https://www.dailynk.com/english/what-are-the-ten-principles/
The ten main principles and 65 sub-clauses of the Ten Principles describe in detail how to go about establishing the one-ideology system. All North Koreans have to memorize them. Not only that, they have to put them into practice; during regular evaluation meetings, people criticize themselves on the basis of whether or not they have been living up to the Ten Principles in their everyday lives.
picture of the book
picture of the book: https://www.asiapress.org/apn/2015/01/north-korea/post_5433/ https://archive.is/k8OEp
Last year, the Asian Press obtained the actual North Korean Supreme Covenant, "The Ten Principles for Establishing the Party's Unique Territorial System," which transcends both the Constitution and the Workers' Party of Korea's party covenant. It was secretly carried out of the country by a collaborator inside North Korea.
Ten Principles 2013 Version: Importance of Edits Made
Paektu Mountain [ , also Baekdu Mountain or Changbai Mountain] is the tallest mountain in Korea and is mythologically the birthplace of Dangun Wanggeom, the founder of the first Korean Kingdom; the Kim family highlights the mountain in their propaganda and refers to themselves as the Paektu bloodline
Paektu Mountain [ , also Baekdu Mountain or Changbai Mountain] is the tallest mountain in Korea and is mythologically the birthplace of Dangun Wanggeom, the founder of the first Korean Kingdom; the Kim family highlights the mountain in their propaganda and refers to themselves as the Paektu bloodline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paektu_Mountain http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/08/13/2013081301558.html https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20130812004400315
Chang 2013: the document links Kim Jong Un to a patriotic past and the "Paektu lineage"
Chang 2013: the document links Kim Jong Un to a patriotic past and the "Paektu lineage": https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/handle/10371/90303 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/868645599917015060/chang2013.pdf [ , , . [....] - - ( 2012, 2-3). 10 10 [.]]"""
The new governing doctrine gives an emphasis on the loyalty to Kim Jong Eun from the Baekdu lineage and on learning after Kim Jong Il. This implies that following Kim Jong Il s patriotism, all people should contribute to developing a stronger country.
Kim Jong-un had to inherit the lineage and ideas of his grandfather and father, and to present his own ruling ideology for the construction of a new society. [...] [The ideology of] Kim-Il-sung-Kim-Jong-ilism contains the aspect of proving that [Kim Jong-un] is a faithful successor by showing filial piety, the aspect of making [him] great, and the granting of legitimacy to the lineage of Mt. Baekdu (Young-Chul Jung 2012, 2-3). This can be seen in Article 10 of the Ten Principles [.]
Sina 2013
Sina 2013: http://news.sina.com.cn/w/2013-08-12/113127926807.shtml https://archive.ph/8JaDD
Article 10, paragraph 1, of the revised "Ten Principles" of North Korea stipulates that the cause of establishing the party's sole leadership system should be deepened and continued for generations. The second paragraph also stipulates that the blood of our party and the revolution-the Paektu Mountain bloodline should be continued forever... and its absolute purity should be resolutely maintained. In the previous "Ten Principles," Article 10, paragraph 1, stated that the only leadership system of the Party Central Committee should be established under the leadership of leader Kim Il Sung. A researcher at a South Korean National Policy Research Institute said, North Korea emphasized The Baektu Mountain descent, and clearly stipulated hereditary system, strengthened the idolization of the three generations of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un's "Kim family", which is tantamount to recognizing that North Korea is a modern feudal country. The revised "Ten Principles" also include, "Make the Sun Palace of Jinxiu Mountain (the place where the remains of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il) an eternal sacred place, and vowed to defend to the death (Article 2)" and "Treat it solemnly. Works and slogans with portraits, statues, and videos of the great Baektu Mountain, and resolutely protect (Article 3)" and other content. The Kim Jong-un family is called "the great men of Mount Paektu". Article 4 also stipulates that the instructions of the leader (Kim Il Sung), the quotations of the general (Kim Jong Il), and the line and policies of the Party (Kim Jong Un regime) shall be regarded as the principles and creeds of career and life, and shall be regarded as the measure of everything According to those requirements, think and act in accordance with those requirements anytime and anywhere.
Ten Principles 1974 Version: Original Korean Hangeoul
full document available on Wikipedia (Hangeoul)
Ten Principles 1974 Version: CAfNKHR Translation
CAfNKHR 2011: full English translation of the 1974 "Ten Great Principles of the Establishment of the Unitary Ideology System"; translation is by biased organization and skews the document negatively (ie, "authoritarian rule" instead of "dictatorship of the proletariat"; "hereditary succession" instead of "from generation to generation")
CAfNKHR 2011: full English translation of the 1974 "Ten Great Principles of the Establishment of the Unitary Ideology System"; translation is by biased organization and skews the document negatively (ie, "authoritarian rule" instead of "dictatorship of the proletariat"; "hereditary succession" instead of "from generation to generation"): https://www.nkhr.or.kr/en/publications/quarterly-journal-1996-2012/life-human-rights-in-north-korea-vol-62-winter/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210126022340/http://eng.nkhumanrights.or.kr/board/download.php?fileno=1002&no=67&board_table=bbs_quarterly&page=1&word=&searchItem=&cate_id= https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/868600753328115762/nkhr2011winter.pdf translated by Joanna Hosaniak, Kyung Eun Ha, Markus Simpson Bell
article 1: "Struggle with all your life to paint the entire society the single color of the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung s revolutionary thought." "Entrust our fate to the Great Leader and devote our bodies and spirits for the revolutionary fight driven by the Great Leader, carrying with us always, the strong belief that there is nothing impossible if we are under the leadership of the Great Leader."
article 1: "Struggle with all your life to paint the entire society the single color of the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung s revolutionary thought." "Entrust our fate to the Great Leader and devote our bodies and spirits for the revolutionary fight driven by the Great Leader, carrying with us always, the strong belief that there is nothing impossible if we are under the leadership of the Great Leader." https://www.nkhr.or.kr/en/publications/quarterly-journal-1996-2012/life-human-rights-in-north-korea-vol-62-winter/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210126022340/http://eng.nkhumanrights.or.kr/board/download.php?fileno=1002&no=67&board_table=bbs_quarterly&page=1&word=&searchItem=&cate_id= https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/868600753328115762/nkhr2011winter.pdf
article 2: "Even in a short life, live only for the Great Leader, devote our youth and life for him and keep loyal minds toward the Great Leader even under unfavorable circumstances"
article 3: "Affirming the absolute nature of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung s authority is the supreme demand of our revolutionary task and the revolutionary volition of our party and people." "Regard as an emergency situation and pursue unyielding the fight against even the smallest challenge that could damage the authority and power of the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung." "Respectfully worship our beloved Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung s sculptures, plaster casts, bronze statues, badges with portraits, art developed by the Great Leader, board with Great Leader s instructions, basic mottos of the Party."
article 3: "Affirming the absolute nature of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung s authority is the supreme demand of our revolutionary task and the revolutionary volition of our party and people." "Regard as an emergency situation and pursue unyielding the fight against even the smallest challenge that could damage the authority and power of the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung." "Respectfully worship our beloved Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung s sculptures, plaster casts, bronze statues, badges with portraits, art developed by the Great Leader, board with Great Leader s instructions, basic mottos of the Party.": https://www.nkhr.or.kr/en/publications/quarterly-journal-1996-2012/life-human-rights-in-north-korea-vol-62-winter/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210126022340/http://eng.nkhumanrights.or.kr/board/download.php?fileno=1002&no=67&board_table=bbs_quarterly&page=1&word=&searchItem=&cate_id= https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/868600753328115762/nkhr2011winter.pdf
article 4: "Accept the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung s revolutionary thought as your belief and take the Great Leader s instructions as your creed", "Unconditionally accept, treat as a non-negotiable condition, and decide everything based upon our Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung s instructions and in every act think only about the greatness of our Leader."
article 5: "Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung s instructions must be viewed as a legal and supreme order and unconditionally realized without excuses or trivial reasons, but with endless loyalty and sacrifice.", "Regard as a holy duty and supreme glory reducing the concerns of our Beloved Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung and fight for it with complete dedication."
article 6: "As a rule, evaluate and treat all people using the degree of loyalty to the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung as the yardstick and struggle against livelihoods that are at odds with the sole ideological system of the Party regardless of one s position and distinctions"
article 7: nothing too crazy here
article 8: "Consider political life as the first life, never bend one s political beliefs and revolutionary integrity. Learn to throw away like bits of straw, one s physical life for political life."
article 9: "Establish a strong revolutionary order and rules that organize and advance all undertakings according to the Leader s sole leadership system and handle policy questions solely through the teachings of the Great Leader and the conclusion of the Party." "Timely report to the Party organization the non-organizational and disorderly situations that violate the Party s unitary ideological system and sole leadership constitution whether it is big or small."
article 9: "Establish a strong revolutionary order and rules that organize and advance all undertakings according to the Leader s sole leadership system and handle policy questions solely through the teachings of the Great Leader and the conclusion of the Party." "Timely report to the Party organization the non-organizational and disorderly situations that violate the Party s unitary ideological system and sole leadership constitution whether it is big or small.": https://www.nkhr.or.kr/en/publications/quarterly-journal-1996-2012/life-human-rights-in-north-korea-vol-62-winter/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210126022340/http://eng.nkhumanrights.or.kr/board/download.php?fileno=1002&no=67&board_table=bbs_quarterly&page=1&word=&searchItem=&cate_id= https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/868600753328115762/nkhr2011winter.pdf
article 10: "Make all of your family as well as yourself look up to the Great Leader and fulfill loyal duty to him and remain endlessly faithful to the Party s sole leadership."
Constitution Changes
1998 Constitution
prior Constitution
Previously, the North had deleted all the expressions of 'communism' in 2009 and 2010 when it revised the constitution and party rules, respectively.
Previously, the North had deleted all the expressions of 'communism' in 2009 and 2010 when it revised the constitution and party rules, respectively.
also removed dictatorship of proletariat!
also removed dictatorship of proletariat!
This time the name was changed to "Ten Principles for Establishing the Party's Unique Leadership System", and the content was reduced from the preamble plus 10 articles and 65 paragraphs and merged into the preamble plus 10 articles and 60 paragraphs.
This time the name was changed to "Ten Principles for Establishing the Party's Unique Leadership System", and the content was reduced from the preamble plus 10 articles and 65 paragraphs and merged into the preamble plus 10 articles and 60 paragraphs.
Nighttime Photographs
NASA 2016: nighttime photographs of North and South Korea
NASA 2016: nighttime photographs of North and South Korea: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=110.48491127844227,29.585530544395333,144.16985116294,47.046703464114564&z=1&l=VIIRS_SNPP_DayNightBand_ENCC(hidden),Reference_Labels_15m,Reference_Features_15m,Coastlines_15m(hidden),VIIRS_Black_Marble,VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden)&lg=false&t=2016-12-01-T22%3A42%3A34Z
Propaganda
Kim 2007: North Korea hasn't published detailed economic stats since the 60's and no growth stats at all since the 1990
History
after the war, North Korea developed rapidly and was more industrialized than the South until the 1970's; just as quickly, it afterward stagnated and saw flat or declining standards of living
after the war, North Korea developed rapidly and was more industrialized than the South until the 1970's; just as quickly, it afterward stagnated and saw flat or declining standards of living: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-1967-purge-the-gapsan-faction-and-establishment-the-monolithic-ideological-system
North Korea: """North Korea released relatively detailed statistics in the 1950s, but stopped publishing official data from the 1960s. Japanese scholars, Goto and Niwa, tried to estimate North Korea s GDP using a method similar to the NMP-based method applied by the CIA to estimate the Soviet s GDP (Goto, 1990; Niwa and Goto, 1989). However, while this worked until 1960, the lack of data made this endeavor no longer feasible. In addition, because there was significantly less data for North Korea than the Soviet Union, various assumptions had been made in the estimation of GDP, making the accuracy of the estimates somewhat suspect."""
North Korea:
North Korea released relatively detailed statistics in the 1950s, but stopped publishing official data from the 1960s. Japanese scholars, Goto and Niwa, tried to estimate North Korea s GDP using a method similar to the NMP-based method applied by the CIA to estimate the Soviet s GDP (Goto, 1990; Niwa and Goto, 1989). However, while this worked until 1960, the lack of data made this endeavor no longer feasible. In addition, because there was significantly less data for North Korea than the Soviet Union, various assumptions had been made in the estimation of GDP, making the accuracy of the estimates somewhat suspect.
Lack of GDP Data: No Publication
Kim 2007: total factor productivity (TFP) was low or negative for most of North Korea's history, and most growth resulted from increased capital stock and intensity
GDP Data Estimates
Kim 2021: GDP growth rate estimates from several sources, including NK's official estimates and their preferred, hidden-inflation-adjusted estimates
Kim 2021: GDP growth rate estimates from several sources, including NK's official estimates and their preferred, hidden-inflation-adjusted estimates https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/234189 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/879877812801134622/kim2021.pdf
BOK 2021: bank of korea data and sectoral estimates
Alternate Data: Budget Growth
Kim 2021: growth in budget data is nominal and includes loans, and is also not listed by specific budget items, which makes using it as an estimate for real growth difficult
Kim 2021: growth in budget data is nominal and includes loans, and is also not listed by specific budget items, which makes using it as an estimate for real growth difficult: https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/234189 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/879877812801134622/kim2021.pdf
Recent discussions on the North Korean growth rate also show potential for such errors. In a recent paper, the author assessed the economic conditions of North Korea to be reasonable after believing that the 4.2% growth in the 2020 budget plan released in April was the economic growth rate. But, as I pointed out earlier, the budget and settlement of accounts is a nominal variable, and in the Soviet s case, it included its central bank loans in the budget income. There is no guarantee that North Korea is any different. And, unless specific items of the budget account are clearly stated, doubt will only escalate.
Frank 2012: the official North Korean budget size (the only other official measure published) implies smoothly and consistently upward economic growth since 1999, which is implausible
Frank 2012: the official North Korean budget size (the only other official measure published) implies smoothly and consistently upward economic growth since 1999, which is implausible: https://www.38north.org/2012/07/rfrank071612/
Frank 2012: but year-to-year changes in the official North Korean budget size correlate reasonably well with changes in the growth rates estimated by the Bank of South Korea
Frank 2012: but year-to-year changes in the official North Korean budget size correlate reasonably well with changes in the growth rates estimated by the Bank of South Korea: https://www.38north.org/2012/07/rfrank071612/ Graph 2 also includes the North Korean GDP growth estimates by the Bank of Korea (purple line). In absolute terms, these are much lower than the North Korean data. But remarkably, the correlation coefficient for this South Korean estimate and North Korea s officially announced achieved revenue (blue line) from 2005 to 2011 is relatively high with r=0.65 .... In other words, although both sides seem to differ about the amount of growth, at least there is some moderately strong agreement about its general direction.
Frank 2017: continuation of above graph shows significantly lower growth after 2013
Frank 2017: continuation of above graph shows significantly lower growth after 2013: https://www.38north.org/2017/04/rfrank042817/
Causes of Slow Growth: Low TFP Growth
Kim 2007: total factor productivity (TFP) was low or negative for most of North Korea's history, and most growth resulted from increased capital stock and intensity
Kim 2007: total factor productivity (TFP) was low or negative for most of North Korea's history, and most growth resulted from increased capital stock and intensity: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596707000327 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jce.2007.04.001 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/879888985705574440/kim2007.pdf
We find that, taking distortions in output and price statistics into account, the average annual growth rate of North Korean GNP and GNP per capita from 1954 to 1989 was 4.4 and 1.9%, respectively. The average annual growth rates of GNP are fairly comparable to those of the Soviet economy from 1928 to 1985 according to Western estimates but the rates per capita are well below those of most socialist economies in the same period (Ofer, 1987). [....] Our findings indicate that the main cause of slow or negative economic growth was extremely low total factor productivity, and that the productivity of the North Korean economy had been lower than that of the Soviet economy by 33%.
Reforms Over Time
Frank 2017: the proportion of the economy that is not centrally planned is increasing
Frank 2017: the proportion of the economy that is not centrally planned is increasing: https://www.38north.org/2017/04/rfrank042817/ The share of budget revenue coming from local areas is planned to reach 26.7 percent in 2017, compared to 23.2 percent in 2016 and a mere 16.1 percent in 2011. This implies that the part of the economy that is not centrally controlled is still growing, an impression I can confirm based on what I saw during my recent visits to North Korea. The Minister of Finance who delivered the report actually said that Provinces, cities and counties envisage ensuring expenditures with their own local revenues and adding their profits to the state budget. In other words, their income has reached a stage where they become mainly self-sufficient.
Sanctions and Testing Timeline
Drum 2018: brief timeline of sanctions
DW 2018: brief timeline of missile tests
Davenport 2021
See 2020: graph of US-NK meetings and NK military provocations
Sanctions Economic Impact
Kim 2021: north Korea's trade fell from around 4.0 billion in 1990 (before USSR collapse) to 2.5 billion in 1991 (after USSR collapse) and 1.5 billion in 1998 (end of North Korean famine, March of Suffering); it rose to about 4 billion in 2008-2010 and 7.5 billion in 2014, (increased trade with China outweighed sanctions from rest of world) before declining to about 3 billion in 2018 (China imposed sanctions)
Kim 2021: north Korea's trade fell from around 4.0 billion in 1990 (before USSR collapse) to 2.5 billion in 1991 (after USSR collapse) and 1.5 billion in 1998 (end of North Korean famine, March of Suffering); it rose to about 4 billion in 2008-2010 and 7.5 billion in 2014, (increased trade with China outweighed sanctions from rest of world) before declining to about 3 billion in 2018 (China imposed sanctions): https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/234189 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/879877812801134622/kim2021.pdf
in 2019, China represented 95.8% of exports and 67% of imports to North Korea
in 2019, China represented 95.8% of exports and 67% of imports to North Korea: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/prk
Bicker 2021: the closing of North Korean borders due to COVID-19 and sanctions have created a situation similar to deadly 90s famine, according to Kim Jong-un
Bicker 2021: the closing of North Korean borders due to COVID-19 and sanctions have created a situation similar to deadly 90s famine, according to Kim Jong-un: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56685356
Hyun-woo 2019: between 2017 and 2018 (when many new sanctions were imposed), exports from North Korea reduced by 86% and imports to North Korea reduced by 31%
Hyun-woo 2019: between 2017 and 2018 (when many new sanctions were imposed), exports from North Korea reduced by 86% and imports to North Korea reduced by 31%: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/07/103_272576.html
Resolution 2371, which took effect in August 2017, bans U.N. member nations from importing North Korean coal, iron ore and seafood. Resolution 2375, which came into force a month later, bans purchasing textiles from North Korea and selling natural gas condensates and liquids to the regime. Resolution 2397 in December also bans selling industrial machinery and vessels. Because coal, iron ore and textiles are North Korea's main export items, their drop of almost 100 percent led to the plunge in exports, KOTRA said. The North's exports of mineral fuel and oil dropped by 96.9 percent and textiles fell 99.5 percent.
Foreign Aid: Comparison to South Korea
SK had a GDP of 23.6 bn 2010 USD in 1960, 58.5 billion in 1970
SK had a GDP of 23.6 bn 2010 USD in 1960, 58.5 billion in 1970: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?locations=KR
SK received 1.5bn 2010 USD (6.4% of GDP) in 1960, 1.9bn 2010 USD (3.2% of GDP) in 1970
SK received 1.5bn 2010 USD (6.4% of GDP) in 1960, 1.9bn 2010 USD (3.2% of GDP) in 1970: https://journals.openedition.org/poldev/1535
History
the CCP legalized and encouraged wealthy individuals to join the Party in 2002
the CCP legalized and encouraged wealthy individuals to join the Party in 2002: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/integrating-wealth-and-power-in-china-the-communist-partys-embrace-of-the-private-sector/EA99A64D882429152C77D71CF6AE88A6 http://sci-hub.se/10.1017/S0305741007002056
To further symbolize the CCP's support of the private sector, the 16th Party Congress in 2002 revised the Party's Constitution to include the "Three Represents" slogan promoted by Jiang Zemin. The CCP now claimed to represent not only its traditional supporters, the workers and farmers, but also the interests of the new "advanced productive forces" of urban economic and social elites, thereby justifying their inclusion in the Party. Although often ridiculed as empty rhetoric, the "Three Represents" changed the Party's strategy of co-opting entrepreneurs from an informal practice to a formal goal.
Wealth of the Leadership: Usa
wealth of US congress (2018): total $2.43 billion, mean $4.54 million, median $511 thousand
Wealth of the Leadership: China
Li 2017: research on the this topic
Li 2017: research on the this topic: https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/7233 https://sci-hub.se/10.4000/chinaperspectives.7233 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/992964136164143174/li2017.pdf
Private entrepreneurs have also been granted representation in the NPC and National People s Political Consultative Conference (NPPCC) since the 1990s. According to calculations by Southern Weekly in 2010, about 9% of the delegates in the 11th NPC (2008 2013) were owners of private enterprises.28 According to the Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute, about 15% of private entrepreneurs on the China s Rich List were members of either the NPC or NPPCC from 2010 to 2013, and as much as 30-40% of the 50 richest private entrepreneurs in China were also NPC/NPPCC delegates from 2010 to 2014.29
2018 Hurun China Rich List 2018
2018 Hurun Rich List Ranking
2018 Hurun Rich List Ranking: https://www.hurun.net/en-US/Rank/HsRankDetails?pagetype=rich&num=DFW1O34E https://archive.ph/wip/wNFdj
Political appointments hit a twenty-year low with 7.5% compared with 10% last year and five years ago s high at 15.7%. 142 are delegates to the NPC or CPPCC, down 71 from last year, with delegate to the NPC down 48 to 77, and CPPCC down 23 to 65.
2016 Hurun Rich List
2016 Hurun Rich List: http://www.hurun.net/CN/ArticleShow.aspx?nid=20867 http://web.archive.org/web/20170325204435/http://www.hurun.net/CN/ArticleShow.aspx?nid=20867
The proportion of people who have the right to speak has dropped for two consecutive years, from 11.3% last year to 9.4%. 176 are deputies to the National People's Congress or members of the CPPCC, a decrease of 17 from last year. Among them, the number of deputies to the National People's Congress decreased by 15 to 99, and the number of members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference decreased by 2 to 77. Mainly because the election of 45 deputies to the 12th National People's Congress of Liaoning Province was invalid.
2015 Hurun Rich List
2014 Hurun Rich List
2013 Hurun Rich List
2012 Hurun Rich List
2011 Hurun Rich List
2010 Hurun Rich List
2009 Hurun Rich List
^ ultimate source
2019: the National People's Congress (2948 people) was worth at least 3.4 trillion CNY (504 billion USD, average 168 million USD), according to the Hurun Report
2018: the National People's Congress (2980 people) was worth at least 4.1 trillion CNY (650 billion USD, average 217 million USD), according to the Hurun Report
2017: the National People's Congress (~3000 people) was worth at least 3.5 trillion CNY (555 billion USD, average 185 million USD), according to the Hurun Report
2017: the National People's Congress (~3000 people) was worth at least 3.5 trillion CNY (555 billion USD, average 185 million USD), according to the Hurun Report: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/business/china-wealth-rich-parliament.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_National_People%27s_Congress
^ author of Hurun report
Wealth of the Leadership: Change Over Time
Hurun reports
Sources of People for the NPC
NPC breakdown by employment sector (? or is this by which body supported them in the NPC)
NPC breakdown by employment sector (? or is this by which body supported them in the NPC): http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018-02/24/c_1122448912.htm https://archive.vn/dvOdP
468 45 15.70% 2.28 613 20.57% 0.15 1011 33.93% 0.95
468 front-line workers and peasant representatives (including 45 peasant worker representatives), accounting for 15.70% of the total number of representatives, an increase It has increased 2.28 percentage points; 613 professional and technical personnel representatives, accounting for 20.57% of the total number of representatives, an increase of 0.15 percentage points; party and government leading cadre representatives of 1011, accounting for 33.93% of the total number of representatives, a decrease of 0.95 percentage points.
Income Inequality Increase
trend over time
US income, top 1% & bottom 50%
US income, top 1% & bottom 50%: https://wid.world/country/usa/
China income, top 1% & bottom 50%
China income, top 1% & bottom 50%: https://wid.world/country/china/
Wealth Inequality Increase
Chinese wealth inequality between 1995 and 2015 rose to nearly US levels
Expansion of Public Programs
China substantially expanded public program incidence between 2003 and 2016
China substantially expanded public program incidence between 2003 and 2016: https://ash.harvard.edu/publications/understanding-ccp-resilience-surveying-chinese-public-opinion-through-time https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/731266388379041802/cunningham2020.pdf
After General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao ascended to power in 2003, they launched a series of policy measures designed to provide a basic social safety net for China s disadvantaged populations. While these policies remain far from complete and have suffered numerous setbacks and inefficiencies, their significance should not be underestimated. For example, between 2006 and 2011, the percentage of China s population covered by health insurance more than doubled, from 43% to 95%. Also, by 2011, the central government s expenditure on rural and agricultural issues had reached nearly three trillion yuan, ten times the same expenditure in 2004.
efforts towards poverty alleviation have dramatically increased
^ dibao [minimum living standard] graph
Chinese Support for Capitalism
people in China support "free markets" more than even people in the USA
Chinese Support for the CCP
chinese support for the CCP is mostly tied to increased living standards (eg, healthcare subsidies) -- this suggests a lack of ideological committment
chinese support for the CCP is mostly tied to increased living standards (eg, healthcare subsidies) -- this suggests a lack of ideological committment: https://ash.harvard.edu/publications/understanding-ccp-resilience-surveying-chinese-public-opinion-through-time https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/731266388379041802/cunningham2020.pdf
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. For Chinese leaders at all levels, this is a double-edged sword. Citizens who have grown accustomed to increases in living standards and service provision will expect such improvements to continue, and citizens who praise government officials for effective policies may blame them when policy failures affect them or their family members directly.
Public Wealth Decline
China's public wealth as a proportion of national wealth declined from 70% to 30%; Norway's increased from 30% to 60%; and the US declined from 15% to -5%
Public Investment Decline
leftist-ish: chinese public investment is 75% of total investment (though this gap is closing)
Evaluating Deng's Reforms
successful
successful: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21397 We show that reforms yielded a significant growth and structural transformation differential. GDP growth is 4.2 percentage points higher and the share of the labor force in agriculture is 23.9 percentage points lower compared with the continuation of the pre-1978 policies.
successful
successful: most of china's growth since Deng has come from capital growth and productivity growth, not labor growth
successful: most of china's growth since Deng has come from capital growth and productivity growth, not labor growth: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/china-workshop-challenging-the-misconceptions/
Foreign Aid: Motivations
summary by Brautigam, a 40-year scholar on this specific topic: China gives for basically the same reasons as other countries
summary by Brautigam, a 40-year scholar on this specific topic: China gives for basically the same reasons as other countries: https://u1lib.org/book/935877/cc61f2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792591776610517013/brautigam2009.pdf
Like the US, China gives aid for three reasons: strategic diplomacy, commercial benefit, and as a reflection of society s ideologies and values. The broad brush-strokes of foreign aid policy are set by political leaders, who shape aid as one of many instruments of foreign policy.
Yet, as I hope Chapters 2 and 3 will make clear, after Mao died China s aid and economic engagement in Africa were shaped by two new (but related) influences. First among these was its own experience as an aid recipient and host to foreign investment. After China opened to the outside world and began to receive aid and investment from the West, and particularly from Japan, Chinese policymakers learned a new model of how aid could also serve China s own development goals. The second influence was a pattern of state-sponsored engagement **more characteristic of the East Asian developmental state than of a communist dictatorship.**
Foreign Aid: Scope
foreign aid from China rose from ~$1bn in 2001 to ~$5bn in 2013, including itnernational organizations, grants & no-interest loans, and concessional loans
foreign aid from China rose from ~$1bn in 2001 to ~$5bn in 2013, including itnernational organizations, grants & no-interest loans, and concessional loans: https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/13929 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792574825612705822/kitano2018.pdf
comparison with other countries
Scope
China loaned $86.3bn from 2000-2014 to African countries
these loans are heavily concentrated in resource extraction and transportation
International Lending: Generosity
summary: Chinese lending to developing countries is generally less concessional than official Western or multilateral creditors but much more concessional than the private market. This is a net good!
summary: Chinese lending to developing countries is generally less concessional than official Western or multilateral creditors but much more concessional than the private market. This is a net good!
longer quote
longer quote: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/regional-integration/publication/belt-and-road-economics-opportunities-and-risks-of-transport-corridors https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792566366548393994/ruta2019.pdf
Interest costs and maturities of Chinese loan are on average more favorable than borrowing on market terms. Data reported by debtor countries to the World Bank suggest that most Chinese loans are concessional, but with terms that may not be the most favorable for LIDCs.1 Most Chinese loans to LIDCs have fixed interest rates with a median rate of 2 percent, a grace period of 6 years, and a maturity of 20 years. Terms to LIDCs have been stable over time, corresponding to a median grant element of 40 percent. The median annual maturity of loans to EMEs fluctuates between 12 and 18 years, and the grace period between 3 and 5 years. A growing share of loans to EMEs have flexible interest rates, benchmarked to the 6-month LIBOR rate. Interest rates that Chinese lenders apply to LIDCs are on average more favorable than loans to EMEs but remain higher than those available from other creditors for countries at low and moderate risk of debt distress. The median loan from China fully disburses between 2.5 and 7.5 years from the year of commitment, in both LIDCs and EMEs. Yet, Chinese loans are often associated with other economic costs, such as those arising from collateralization, which are difficult to assess given limited availability of information.
relative to the World Bank, Chinese loans were substantially less concessionary (meaning, offering better terms than private market loans)
relative to the World Bank, comparable Chinese loans were substantially less generous in concessionary; they generally had higher interest rates, shorter length, and shorter grace periods
relative to the World Bank, comparable Chinese loans were substantially less generous in concessionary; they generally had higher interest rates, shorter length, and shorter grace periods: https://www.cgdev.org/publication/chinese-and-world-bank-lending-terms-systematic-comparison https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/731256153144557669/morris2020.pdf
Debt Diplomacy Reading Todo Good Studies
Effects on Popular Opinion
belt and road initiatives seem to win people's hearts
Resource-Backing: Not That Abusive, Based in China's History
much of Chinese international lending is backed by resource exports
much of Chinese international lending is backed by resource exports: http://www.sais-cari.org/publications-working-papers https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792571707474968606/brautigam2016.pdf
Our database identifies at least US$28.8 billion, one-third of the total loan finance, as secured by export commodities.
one cause for this: no conversion to dollars necessary
one cause for this: no conversion to dollars necessary: http://www.sais-cari.org/publications-working-papers https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792571707474968606/brautigam2016.pdf
We see evidence of a parallel practice [to Japan financing developing in China in return for exports of coal and crude oil] in China s zero-interest foreign aid loans to Africa in past decades: the Chinese commonly allowed borrowing governments to repay these RMB loans in export commodities.35 This barter-like arrangement freed both China and the host government from the higher transaction costs of having to do multiple conversions into dollars.
another cause for this: increased security of the investment (for the Chinese lender)
another cause for this: increased security of the investment (for the Chinese lender): http://www.sais-cari.org/publications-working-papers https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792571707474968606/brautigam2016.pdf
The point of securities like these is not for the lender (or a Chinese company) to acquire ownership of an oil well, cocoa farm, railway system, or electrical grid, but to reduce the lender s risks in a country without a good credit rating, or where projects lack sovereign guarantees (or where sovereign guarantees are not very meaningful). For example, Angola is the largest borrower of Chinese oil-secured loans, and China imports 49 percent of Angola s oil, partly in repayment for those loans. Yet Chinese oil companies own only a little more than 10 percent of the oil being produced in Angola; Western companies like ExxonMobil and Total dominate Angolan oil investments dating back decades.39 An escrow account filled by commodity exports or an off-take of electricity sales increases security and lowers risk. This allows projects to be financed at a reasonable interest rate.
My Graphs
the number of arrests in Xinjiang sharply increased in 2017
the proportion of arrests in Xinjiang versus the rest of China sharply increased in 2017
CHRD Article: CHRD Is Untrustworthy
CHRD 2018: despite making up just ~1.6% of the Chinese population, fifth of all criminal arrests in China in 2017 took place in Xinjiang, despite the region only being home to a little over 20 million of China s 1.3 billion people
CHRD 2018: despite making up just ~1.6% of the Chinese population, fifth of all criminal arrests in China in 2017 took place in Xinjiang, despite the region only being home to a little over 20 million of China s 1.3 billion people https://www.nchrd.org/2018/07/criminal-arrests-in-xinjiang-account-for-21-of-chinas-total-in-2017/ https://archive.vn/8YMOp
Grayzone 2018: CHRD is headquartered in Washington, DC and funded by the National Endowment for Democracy
Grayzone 2018: CHRD is headquartered in Washington, DC and funded by the National Endowment for Democracy: https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/23/un-did-not-report-china-internment-camps-uighur-muslims/ "CHRD s 2015 form 990 discloses that $819,553 of its $820,023 revenue that year (99.94 percent) came from government grants. A measly $395 came from investments, with another $75 from other sources."
CHRD is heavily funded by the US government. However, the claims CHRD makes are correctly quoted from Chinese state publications. This data demonstrates that the rate of criminal arrests and indictments sharply increased in Xinjiang relative to the rest of China in 2017.
CHRD is heavily funded by the US government. However, the claims CHRD makes are correctly quoted from Chinese state publications. This data demonstrates that the rate of criminal arrests and indictments sharply increased in Xinjiang relative to the rest of China in 2017. https://socdoneleft.org/2021/03/03/uighur-mass-internment-chinese-criminal-prosecution-data-chrd-and-grayzone/
Census Data
2010 census: Xinjiang made up 1.63% of China's population in 2010 and 1.52% in 2000; Tibet 0.21% in 2000 and 0.22% in 2010; Inner Mongolia 1.88% and 1.84%
2010 census: Xinjiang made up 1.63% of China's population in 2010 and 1.52% in 2000; Tibet 0.21% in 2000 and 0.22% in 2010; Inner Mongolia 1.88% and 1.84%: https://web.archive.org/web/20131114021725/http:/www.stats.gov.cn/english/newsandcomingevents/t20110429_402722516.htm
State Publications: Xinjiang People's Procuratorate Work Reports
index page
2008-2012: 81443 criminal arrests, 107555 criminal indictments
2008-2012: 81443 criminal arrests, 107555 criminal indictments: http://news.ts.cn/content/2013-01/29/content_7735230.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20130731194001/http://news.ts.cn/content/2013-01/29/content_7735230.htm
1 28 5 81443 107555 178
In the past five years, the procuratorial organs of the whole district approved the arrest of 81,443 criminal suspects of various types, and prosecuted 107,555 people, including 178 leaders at or above the county level.
2014: 27164 criminal arrests and 34816 criminal indictments
2014: 27164 criminal arrests and 34816 criminal indictments: http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/201804/t20180402_2174113.shtml https://archive.vn/vrRD6
27164 34816 [ ]
The district s procuratorial organs approved the arrest of 27,164 criminal suspects and prosecuted 34,816 persons, an increase of 95.7% and 59.3% year-on-year[.]
^ above implies the following for 2013: criminal arrests 13880 = 27164 / 1.957, criminal indictments 21856 = 34816 / 1.593
^ above implies the following for 2013: criminal arrests 13880 = 27164 / 1.957, criminal indictments 21856 = 34816 / 1.593
2015: 34568 criminal arrests, 49075 criminal indictments
2015: 34568 criminal arrests, 49075 criminal indictments: http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/201804/t20180405_2176413.shtml https://archive.vn/ftrWf
34568 49075 [ ]
The district s procuratorial organs approved the arrest of 34,568 criminal suspects and prosecuted 49,075 persons, up 27% and 41% year-on-year[.]
2016: 27404 criminal arrets, 41305 criminal indictments
2016: 27404 criminal arrets, 41305 criminal indictments: http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/201804/t20180405_2176418.shtml https://archive.vn/RVryh
27404 41305 [ ]
The district s procuratorial organs approved the arrest of 27,404 criminal suspects and prosecuted 41,305 persons[.]
2013-2017: 330918 criminal arrests, 362872 criminal prosecutions
2013-2017: 330918 criminal arrests, 362872 criminal prosecutions: http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/201804/t20180405_2176419.shtml https://archive.vn/5MLLE
330918 362872 [ ]
In the past five years, the district s procuratorial organs approved the arrest of 330,918 criminal suspects and prosecuted 362,872 persons[.]
^ above implies the following for 2017: criminal arrests 227902 = 330918 - (13880 + 27164 + 34568 + 27404), criminal indictments: 215820 = 362872 - (21856 + 34816 + 49075 + 41305)
^ above implies the following for 2017: criminal arrests 227902 = 330918 - (13880 + 27164 + 34568 + 27404), criminal indictments: 215820 = 362872 - (21856 + 34816 + 49075 + 41305)
2018: 114023 criminal arrests, 135546 criminal indictments
2018: 114023 criminal arrests, 135546 criminal indictments: http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/201905/t20190504_2557856.shtml https://archive.vn/U3qAm
114023 135546
In the whole year, 114,023 criminal suspects of various types were arrested and 135,546 were prosecuted.
2019: 63736 criminal arrests, 96596 criminal indictments
2019: 63736 criminal arrests, 96596 criminal indictments: http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/202008/t20200831_2937059.shtml https://archive.is/wNfI9
36732 63736 64788 96596 [ ]
Prosecutors approved criminal arrests for 36732 cases and 63736 people and approved criminal prosecutions for 64788 and 96596 people[.]
2020: 22386 criminal arrests, 48258 criminal indictments
2020: 22386 criminal arrests, 48258 criminal indictments: http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/202105/t20210526_3255656.shtml https://archive.ph/n7EfW
22386 48258
Resolutely implement the overall national security concept, adhere to the general goal of social stability and long-term stability as the general program of procuratorial work, arrest 22,386 people for various crimes, prosecute 48,258 people, and maintain the overall social stability based on the procuratorial function.
2021: 26942 criminal arrests, 44603 criminal indictments:
2021: 26942 criminal arrests, 44603 criminal indictments:http://www.xj.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/202208/t20220801_3779753.shtml https://archive.ph/RJttz
12901 26942 28490 44603
Over the past year, the procuratorial organs in the region have arrested 26,942 people in 12,901 cases of various crimes, and prosecuted 44,603 people in 28,490 cases, effectively promoting the construction of a safe Xinjiang.
State Publications: Supreme People's Procuratorate Work Reports
index page
2008: 952583 criminal arrests, 1143897 criminal indictment
2008: 952583 criminal arrests, 1143897 criminal indictment: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201208/t20120820_2496.shtml https://archive.vn/bTH0u
952583 , 1143897 , 3.5% 5.7%
In the whole year, a total of 952,583 criminal suspects of various types were arrested and 1,143,897 were prosecuted, an increase of 3.5% and 5.7% respectively over the previous year.
2009: 941091 criminal arrests, 1134380 criminal indictments
2009: 941091 criminal arrests, 1134380 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201208/t20120820_2497.shtml https://archive.vn/FTHcr
In the whole year, a total of 9,410,91 criminal suspects of various types were arrested and 1,134,380 people were prosecuted, a decrease of 1.2% and 0.8% respectively over the previous year.
2010: 916209 criminal arrests, 1148409 criminal indictments
2010: 916209 criminal arrests, 1148409 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201208/t20120820_2498.shtml https://archive.vn/j93eB
916209 , 2.6%; 1148409 , 1.2%
In the whole year, a total of 916,209 criminal suspects of various types were approved to be arrested, a year-on-year decrease of 2.6%; 1,148,409 people were prosecuted, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%.
2011: 908756 criminal arrests, 1201032 criminal indictments
2011: 908756 criminal arrests, 1201032 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201208/t20120820_2499.shtml https://archive.vn/2IA22
, 908756 , 0.8%; 1201032 , 4.6%[ ]
A total of 908,756 criminal suspects of various types were approved in accordance with the law, a year-on-year decrease of 0.8%; 1,201,032 people were prosecuted, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%
2008-2012: 2642067 criminal arrests, 2965467 criminal indictments
2008-2012: 2642067 criminal arrests, 2965467 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201303/t20130316_57131.shtml https://archive.vn/hAON0
2642067 2965467 [ ]
Approved the arrest of 2,642,067 people and prosecute 2,965,467 people for crimes.
^ the 2008-2012 number does NOT line up with the numbers from 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; either the 2008-2012 number is not comparable or is wrong
^ the 2008-2012 number does NOT line up with the numbers from 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; either the 2008-2012 number is not comparable or is wrong
2013: 879817 criminal arrests, 1324404 criminal indictments
2013: 879817 criminal arrests, 1324404 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/tt/201403/t20140318_69216.shtml https://archive.vn/swwgY
879817 1324404
Throughout the year, 879,817 criminal suspects of various types were arrested, and 1,324,404 were prosecuted.
2014: 879615 criminal arrests, 1391225 indictments
2014: 879615 criminal arrests, 1391225 indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201503/t20150324_93812.shtml https://archive.vn/QOsBh
879615 0.02% 1391225 5%
[We ]approved the arrest of 879,615 criminal suspects of various types, a year-on-year decrease of 0.02%, and prosecuted 1,391,225 people, a year-on-year increase of 5%.
2015: 873148 criminal arrests, 1390933 criminal indictments
2015: 873148 criminal arrests, 1390933 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201603/t20160321_114723.shtml https://archive.vn/bB9SX
873148 1390933
Procuratorates across the country approved the arrest of 873,148 criminal suspects and prosecutions of 1,390,933 people.
2016: 828618 criminal arrests, 1402463 criminal indictments
2016: 828618 criminal arrests, 1402463 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201703/t20170320_185861.shtml https://archive.vn/jXrYv
828618 5.1% 1402463 0.8%
In the whole year, a total of 828,618 criminal suspects of various types were approved to be arrested, a year-on-year decrease of 5.1%; 1402463 people were prosecuted, a year-on-year increase of 0.8%.
2013-2017: 4531000 criminal arrests, 7173000 criminal indictments
2013-2017: 4531000 criminal arrests, 7173000 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201803/t20180325_372171.shtml https://archive.vn/2FpEH
2013 2017 453.1 3.4% 717.3 19.2%
From 2013 to 2017, procuratorial organs across the country approved the arrest of 4.531 million criminal suspects of various types, a decrease of 3.4% over the previous five years; prosecuted 7.173 million, an increase of 19.2% over the previous five years.
^ the above implies the following results for 2017: criminal arrests 1069802 = 4531000 - (879817 + 879615 + 873148 + 828618); criminal indictments 1663975 = 7173000 - (1324404 + 1391225 + 1390933 + 1402463)
^ the above implies the following results for 2017: criminal arrests 1069802 = 4531000 - (879817 + 879615 + 873148 + 828618); criminal indictments 1663975 = 7173000 - (1324404 + 1391225 + 1390933 + 1402463)
2018: 1056616 criminal arrests, 1692846 criminal indictments
2018: 1056616 criminal arrests, 1692846 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/201903/t20190319_412293.shtml https://archive.vn/m3Fxu
1056616 1692846 2.3% 0.8%[ ]
[Procuratorial organs] approved the arrest of 1,056,616 suspects of various types and prosecuting 1,692,846 people, a year-on-year decrease of 2.3% and 0.8% respectively[.]
^ the above implies the following results for 2017: criminal arrests 1081490 = 1056616 / 0.977; criminal indictments 1706497 = 1692846 / 0.992
^ the above implies the following results for 2017: criminal arrests 1081490 = 1056616 / 0.977; criminal indictments 1706497 = 1692846 / 0.992
2019: 935432 criminal arrests, 1413742 criminal indictments
2019: 935432 criminal arrests, 1413742 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/202006/t20200601_463798.shtml https://archive.vn/yPFJt
935432 1413742 [ ]
Among them, 935,432 arrest cases were reviewed, 1413742 were reviewed and prosecuted.
2020: 770561 criminal arrests, 1572971 criminal indictments
2020: 770561 criminal arrests, 1572971 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/202103/t20210315_512731.shtml https://archive.ph/kSqBt
770561 1572971
Efforts to advance more High-level construction of a safe China and rule of law China, and consciously play a role in improving the effectiveness of national governance. Approved the arrest of 770,561 criminal suspects of various types, and prosecuted 1,572,971 people.
2021: 868445 criminal arrests, 1748962 criminal indictments
2021: 868445 criminal arrests, 1748962 criminal indictments: https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/202203/t20220315_549267.shtml https://archive.ph/ErPVO
868445 1748962 12.7% 11.2%
Resolutely safeguard national security and social stability. Throughout the year, approved the arrest of 868,445 criminal suspects of various types, and prosecuted 1,748,962 people, up 12.7% and 11.2% year-on-year respectively.
State Publications: Tibet
index page
2019: 1635 criminal arrests and 2616 criminal indictments
2019: 1635 criminal arrests and 2616 criminal indictments: http://www.xz.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/202002/t20200211_2771192.shtml https://archive.ph/pNkU2
1150 1635 1818 2616 40.8% 52.2%
A total of 1635 people were arrested for 1150 suspected crimes, and 2616 persons were prosecuted for 1818 suspected crimes, representing a year-on-year increase of 40.8% and 52.2% respectively.
2018: 1414 criminal arrests and 1752 criminal indictments
2018: 1414 criminal arrests and 1752 criminal indictments: http://www.xz.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/201903/t20190301_2501903.shtml https://archive.ph/AwF6k
1414 1752 [ ]
A total of 1414 people were arrested for various criminal offences and 1752 people were prosecuted[.]
2013-2017: 6966 criminal arrests, 8364 criminal prosecutions
2013-2017: 6966 criminal arrests, 8364 criminal prosecutions: http://www.xz.jcy.gov.cn/jwgk/gzbg/201806/t20180625_2243807.shtml https://archive.ph/nH0TE
6966 8364
In the last five years, a total of 6966 criminal suspects were arrested and 8364 were prosecuted.
2008-2012: 9021 criminal arrests, 8010 criminal indictments
2008-2012: 9021 criminal arrests, 8010 criminal indictments: http://www.xzdw.gov.cn/zlk/llts/201302/t20130227_64699.html https://archive.ph/uhMpy
9021 8010 14.4% 15.9%
In the last five years, 9021 people were approved for criminal arrests and 8010 for criminal prosecution, down 14.4% and 15.9% compared to the previous five years.
xxx
State Publications: Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region People's Procuratorate
index page
2019: 15545 criminal arrests, 32154 criminal prosecutions
2019: 15545 criminal arrests, 32154 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/202001/t20200115_2759828.shtml https://archive.ph/KMWm6
15545 7.7% 32154 11.4%
[Procuratorial organs] approved 15545 [criminal] arrests, an increase of 7.7%; approved 32154 [criminal] prosecutions, an increase of 11.4%.
2018
2018: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201901/t20190129_2480315.shtml https://archive.ph/EmI2d
15456 34479
There were 15456 suspects in criminal offences, and 34479 were prosecuted.
2013-2017: 67283 criminal arrests, 112055 criminal prosecutions
2013-2017: 67283 criminal arrests, 112055 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201807/t20180713_2289803.shtml https://archive.ph/j5btX
51408 67283 112055 149056
In the past five years, a total of 67283 persons were arrested in 51408 criminal cases and 149056 persons were prosecuted in 112055 cases.
^ the above implies the following results for 2017: criminal arrests 14136 = 67283 - (12988 + 12939 + 13283 + 13937); criminal indictments 34830 = 149056 - (29812 + 29368 + 28704 + 26342)
^ the above implies the following results for 2017: criminal arrests 14136 = 67283 - (12988 + 12939 + 13283 + 13937); criminal indictments 34830 = 149056 - (29812 + 29368 + 28704 + 26342)
2016: 12988 criminal arrests, 29812 criminal prosecutions
2016: 12988 criminal arrests, 29812 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201701/t20170117_1927319.shtml https://archive.ph/mavvl
12988 29812 [ ]
[Procuratorial organs] arrested 12988 people as criminal suspects and prosecuted 29812 people [as criminal suspects.]
2015: 12939 criminal arrests, 29368 criminal prosecutions
2015: 12939 criminal arrests, 29368 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201601/t20160128_1748780.shtml https://archive.ph/Rtqdx
12939 29368
[Procuratorial organs] approved the arrest of 12939 criminal suspects and prosecuted 29368 according to the law.
2014: 13283 criminal arrests, 28704 criminal prosecutions
2014: 13283 criminal arrests, 28704 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201501/t20150129_1544595.shtml https://archive.ph/g6KCT
13283 28704
A total of 13283 suspects of various serious criminal offences were arrested and 28704 were prosecuted.
2013: 13937 criminal arrests, 26342 criminal prosecutions
2013: 13937 criminal arrests, 26342 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201405/t20140530_1402581.shtml https://archive.ph/GJ42f
13937 26342 [ ]
[Procuratorial organs] approved the arrest of 13937 people, and approved prosecution of 26342 people[.]
2008-2012: 81070 criminal arrests, 116014 criminal prosecutions
2008-2012: 81070 criminal arrests, 116014 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201405/t20140530_1402580.shtml https://archive.ph/uX4Qg
81070 116014 [ ]
In the past five years, a total of 81070 criminal suspects were arrested and 116014 people were prosecuted.
^ the above implies the following results for 2012: criminal arrests 17429 = 81070 - (16725 + 15571 + 15963 + 15382); criminal indictments 32681 = 116014 - (24409 + 19283 + 20012 + 19629)
^ the above implies the following results for 2012: criminal arrests 17429 = 81070 - (16725 + 15571 + 15963 + 15382); criminal indictments 32681 = 116014 - (24409 + 19283 + 20012 + 19629)
2011: 16725 criminal arrests, 24409 criminal prosecutions
2011: 16725 criminal arrests, 24409 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201405/t20140527_1401022.shtml https://archive.ph/jb4Eh
16725 24409 6.9% 21.0%
In the whole year, 16725 criminal suspects of various types were arrested and 24409 were prosecuted, a year-on-year increase of 6.9% and 21.0% respectively.
^ above implies the following for 2010: criminal arrests 15571 = 16725 * (1 - 0.069), criminal indictments 19283 = 24409 * (1 - 0.21)
^ above implies the following for 2010: criminal arrests 15571 = 16725 * (1 - 0.069), criminal indictments 19283 = 24409 * (1 - 0.21)
2010: missing!
2009: 15963 criminal arrests, 20012 criminal prosecutions
2009: 15963 criminal arrests, 20012 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201405/t20140526_1400438.shtml https://archive.ph/VD4gj
15963 20012 3.8% 2.0%;
Approved the arrest of 15963 criminal suspects and prosecuted 20012, up 3.8% and 2.0% year-on-year;
2008: 15382 criminal arrests, 19629 criminal prosecutions
2008: 15382 criminal arrests, 19629 criminal prosecutions: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201405/t20140526_1400423.shtml https://archive.ph/8sJsZ
15382 19629 13.2% 19.0%
Throughout the year, a total of 15382 criminal suspects of various types were arrested, and 19629 were prosecuted, representing an increase of 13.2% and 19.0% respectively.
2003-2007
2003-2007: http://www.nm.jcy.gov.cn/ygjw/gzbg/201405/t20140526_1400414.shtml https://archive.ph/9votG
62794 74749 12.6% 28.0%
In the past five years, a total of 62794 criminal suspects were arrested and 74749 people were prosecuted, up 12.6% and 28.0% respectively over the previous five years.
1914-1917: World War 1
World War 1 (1914-1918) killed 1.3% of the population (2.25 million
1917: Revolution
10-13 September 1917: Kornilov (assisted by British troops) mobilizes to destroy the Petrograd Soviet; Kornilov refuses provisional government orders to step down; Kornilov's incoming troops treated as a coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kornilov_affair Civil War
the 1917 Russian Civil War (1917-1921) killed 7-12 million (4.1-7.1%) of 170.1 million
the 1917 Russian Civil War (1917-1921) killed 7-12 million (4.1-7.1%) of 170.1 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War
World War 2: Fatalities
World War 2 (1941-1945) killed 26.6 million (15.6%) of the 170 million population
World War 2: Destruction
World War 2 (1941-1945) eliminated 25% of the national wealth
World War II destruction
World War II destruction: https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/great-patriotic-war/pdf/economy.pdf 31850 factories, 102766 farms, 216700 stores, 6000 hospitals, 83520 schools, 334 universities, 43000 libraries, 1.2 million urban dwellings (about 1/3), 65000 kilometers of railroad (about 1/3), 15800 locomotives, 428000 railcars, 137000 tractors [....] The total property losses on the occupied territories of the U .S.S.R., i.e., the losses inflicted on fixed and circulating capital funds, or the direct damage done to the state and the population by the destruction and plunder of state, cooperative, and personal property during the war, amount in pre-war state prices to 679 billion rubles, or 128 billion American dollars. These property losses amount to about two-thirds of the pre-war national wealth of the territories of the U.S.S.R. that underwent occupation.
Comparisons: USA 2019, 6210 hospitals
World War 2: Reparations
reparations from Germany were near-worthless
reparations from Germany were near-worthless: https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/great-patriotic-war/pdf/economy.pdf
The material damage inflicted on the peoples of the U.S.S.R. by Hitler's Germany is compensated only in insignificant measure by the transfer of industrial equipment from Germany to the U.S.S.R. as reparations. The value of this equipment amounts in all to only 0.6 per cent of the above-mentioned direct property losses alone suffered by the U.S.S.R. during the Patriotic War.
American lend-lease contributed about 5-10% of the Soviet war economy
American lend-lease contributed about 5-10% of the Soviet war economy: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/totalwar2005.pdf
The pressure on resources was somewhat alleviated by foreign aid, which added approximately 5 per cent to Soviet resources in 1942 and 10 per cent in 1943 and 1944.
net imports as percent of national income by year for UK, USA, USSA, Germany
GDP Growth: Fairly Average
the USSR had real GDP growth in line with the OECD average (comparable to Canada, Australia) between 1928 (first 5 year plan) and 1991 (collapse)
the USSR had real GDP growth in line with the OECD average (comparable to Canada, Australia) between 1928 (first 5 year plan) and 1991 (collapse): https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2018
GDP Growth Under Stalin: Highly Concentrated During Periods of Low Repression
Davies and Wheatcroft 2018: real growth beyond the Tsarist era was almost entirely concentrated in a brief moment between rapid collectivizatoin and the Great Purge
Income Growth
Piketty et al 2017: the Soviet Union (and Russia) grew faster than the rest of the world
Russia and the Soviet Union saw faster income growth between 1905 to 1956 (184%, 3.6%/yr, + for the bottom 90%) and 1956 to 1989 (129%, 3.9%/yr, + for the bottom 60%) than between 1989 to 2016 (41%, 1.5%/yr, + for the top 10%)
Russia and the Soviet Union saw faster income growth between 1905 to 1956 (184%, 3.6%/yr, + for the bottom 90%) and 1956 to 1989 (129%, 3.9%/yr, + for the bottom 60%) than between 1989 to 2016 (41%, 1.5%/yr, + for the top 10%): https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/ https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/
Consumption Growth
from 1951-79, consumption growth in the USSR was roughly equivalent to consumption growth in the OECD: growth of consumption in the USSR was higher than the OECD average 56-60 (3.8:2.5), 66-70 (4.3:3.7), and lower 50-55 (3.1:3.3), 61-65 (2.1:3.7), 71-75 (2.6:2.8), 76-79 (1.7:3.1); the average USSR:OECD ratio was .944:1
from 1951-79, consumption growth in the USSR was roughly equivalent to consumption growth in the OECD: growth of consumption in the USSR was higher than the OECD average 56-60 (3.8:2.5), 66-70 (4.3:3.7), and lower 50-55 (3.1:3.3), 61-65 (2.1:3.7), 71-75 (2.6:2.8), 76-79 (1.7:3.1); the average USSR:OECD ratio was .944:1: https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/97th%20Congress/USSR%20-%20Measures%20of%20Economic%20Growth%20and%20Development%201950-1980%20(1152).pdf
from 1913-1975, the proportion of production dedicated to producer goods (against consumer goods) consistently increased
Hours Worked Decline
between 1913 and 1960, workers in Russia moved from 58.5-hour workweeks to 41.6 hour workweeks (-0.36 h/yr)
between 1913 and 1960, workers in Russia moved from 58.5-hour workweeks to 41.6 hour workweeks (-0.36 h/yr): https://books.google.com/books?id=x8JYjwEACAAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2669908/77497f
Switzerland: from 1900 at 59h to 1990 at 41.6h (-0.19 h/yr), France: from 1913 at 62h to 1980 at 40.7h (-0.32 h/yr), Italy: from 1913 at 62.4h to 1990 at 39.6h (-0.30 h/yr), Belgium: from 1913 at 59.5h to 1970 at 39.9h (-0.35 h/yr)
Switzerland: from 1900 at 59h to 1990 at 41.6h (-0.19 h/yr), France: from 1913 at 62h to 1980 at 40.7h (-0.32 h/yr), Italy: from 1913 at 62.4h to 1990 at 39.6h (-0.30 h/yr), Belgium: from 1913 at 59.5h to 1970 at 39.9h (-0.35 h/yr) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/work-hours-per-week
Paid Leave Length
in 1986: the USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave
in 1996: the USA averaged 7.6 days of paid leave
in 1996: the USA averaged 7.6 days of paid leave: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
Public Housing
the rate of shared households in the USSR was reported at 40% in 1960 and 20% in 1980 (though this probably undercounts shared households)
the rate of shared households in the USSR was reported at 40% in 1960 and 20% in 1980 (though this probably undercounts shared households): https://www.jstor.org/stable/1174118
reasonably comparable: the rate of shared housing in the USA was 29% in 1995 and 32% in 2017
reasonably comparable: the rate of parental-shared housing in Canada for 20-34 year-olds is about 30%
reasonably comparable: the rate of parental-shared housing in Canada for 20-34 year-olds is about 30%: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016008/98-200-x2016008-eng.cfm
Reduction of Inequality
the USSR vastly equalized income: the top 1% went from 18% to 4% (4x drop, 4x overrepresented) and the top 10% went from 45% to 25% (2x drop, 2.5x overrepresented)
the USSR vastly equalized income: the top 1% went from 18% to 4% (4x drop, 4x overrepresented) and the top 10% went from 45% to 25% (2x drop, 2.5x overrepresented): https://voxeu.org/article/inequality-and-property-russia-1905-2016
before and after the USSR, the top 1% controlled 20% of income and the top 10% controlled 45% of income; during, they controlled 5% and 25%
comparison: USA and Sweden (most equal country in the world)
comparison: USA and Sweden (most equal country in the world): https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/wealth.html
Mobility
the societies of the USSR and Eastern Bloc had higher mobility before the transition from the communist era to the capitalist era
the societies of the USSR and Eastern Bloc had higher mobility before the transition from the communist era to the capitalist era: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562416302104 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.rssm.2017.10.004 The hypothesis regarding the effect of the transition on intergenerational inequality in educational attainment is tested by introducing a dummy variable for the transitional cohort, and its interaction terms with parental education and occupational social class. With this regression specification in Model 4, Table 2, coefficients for social origins refer to the communist period. The characteristics of Model 3, particularly in terms of parental education, are largely maintained for individuals born between 1958 and 1972, which suggests that **there have not been radical changes in intergenerational social mobility patterns in post-communist societies**. Still, the coefficients for social origins and their interactions with the transitional cohort indicate that intergenerational inequality in educational attainment has been affected in the following ways: the interaction term between primary education and transitional cohort is statistically significant and has negative sign, which suggests that **the disadvantage associated with low parental education intensified in post-communist societies**. Nonetheless, the tertiary education-transitional cohort interaction coefficient indicates that **the advantage of having parents with a high level of education was simultaneously reduced**. Related trends are observed in relation to parental social class. In this case, the positive effect of salariat origin on individuals educational attainment declined, but the negative effect of working class origin intensified. In other words, **the gap between individuals from working and intermediate class origin widened during the transition**. This is in line with existing evidence that indicates that the workers were in privileged conditions in the communist era but that their situation deteriorated thereafter (Eyal and Townsley, 1995, Szelenyi, 2002).
Literacy Eradication (Likbez)
the USSR rapidly increased literacy from about 44% after the civil war (1920) to about 87% in 1939 (2.26%/yr) and about 99% in 1959 (+0.6%/yr)
the USSR rapidly increased literacy from about 44% after the civil war (1920) to about 87% in 1939 (2.26%/yr) and about 99% in 1959 (+0.6%/yr): https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/368437.pdf
the USSR reached ~90% literacy faster than other European countries: USSR: 1913 at 40% to 1939 at 88% (26 years); UK: 1700 at 39% to 1889 at 90% (189 years); USA: 1700 at 49% to 1889 at 87% (189 years); France: 1800 at 37% to 1889 at 85% (89 years)
the USSR reached ~90% literacy faster than other European countries: USSR: 1913 at 40% to 1939 at 88% (26 years); UK: 1700 at 39% to 1889 at 90% (189 years); USA: 1700 at 49% to 1889 at 87% (189 years); France: 1800 at 37% to 1889 at 85% (89 years) https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/368437.pdf
Years of Education
the USSR rapidly increased years of education from 1.1 before the revolution (1917) to 1.5 (+36%) in 1927, 3.4 in 1937 (+126%), and 5.4 in 1947 (+42%)
the USSR rapidly increased years of education from 1.1 before the revolution (1917) to 1.5 (+36%) in 1927, 3.4 in 1937 (+126%), and 5.4 in 1947 (+42%): https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/368437.pdf
Soviet Firsts
Soviet citizens were the first to develop fully synthetic music that could be played alongside film; it's also pretty trippy
Soviet citizens were the first to publicize images of carbon nanotubes
Soviet citizens were the first to publicize images of carbon nanotubes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube
In 1952, L. V. Radushkevich and V. M. Lukyanovich published clear images of 50 nanometer diameter tubes made of carbon in the Soviet Journal of Physical Chemistry. This discovery was largely unnoticed, as the article was published in Russian, and Western scientists' access to Soviet press was limited during the Cold War. Monthioux and Kuznetsov mentioned in their Carbon editorial: The fact is, Radushkevich and Lukyanovich [...] should be credited for the discovery that carbon filaments could be hollow and have a nanometer-size diameter, that is to say for the discovery of carbon nanotubes.
Soviet citizens were the first to develop a commercial nuclear reactor
Soviet citizens were the first to develop a commercial nuclear reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obninsk_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Soviet citizens were the first to develop remote-operated tanks
Soviet citizens were the first to develop an orbital mirror
Investment Growth
between 1950 and 1980, investment in the USSR increased from ~15% to ~33% of GNP
between 1950 and 1979, investment in the USSR increased from ~15% to ~33% of GNP; in the rest of the OECD, it remained around 20%
between 1950 and 1980-190, investment in the USA went from ~15% to ~18% of GDP
between 1950 and 1980-190, investment in the USA went from ~15% to ~18% of GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=nIhY
Bad Investment Decisions
Allen 2001: Allen rejects the Weitzman-Easterly-Fisher hypothesis that TFP growth did not slow in the Soviet union and returns to capital slowed from insufficient labor
Allen 2001: Allen rejects the Weitzman-Easterly-Fisher hypothesis that TFP growth did not slow in the Soviet union and returns to capital slowed from insufficient labor: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3131928.pdf https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/0008-4085.00103 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858784395535319040/allen2001.pdf
Productivity in these arguments was calculated with a standard Cobb-Douglas framework with constant factor shares like those in the West. Weitzman 1970 challenged this interpretation by estimating a production function for the USSR. He concluded that the Cobb-Douglas specification was incorrect, and that the Soviet experience was better represented by a CES function with an elasticity of substitution between capital and labour of .4. In this framework, the growth deceleration is due to diminishing returns to capital; there is not evidence of a fall in TFP growth. The growth slowdown, in other words, does not indicate poor institutional performance. Easterley and Fisher have redone the econometrics with more recent data and confirmed the elasticity of substitution. They have been reluctant, however, to exonerate Soviet institutions.
One indicator of the change is unfilled vacancies on the first shift, which rose from 1 per cent in 1960, to 4.9 per cent in 1970, to 7.3 per cent in 1975, then to 9.9 per cent in 1980, and finally hit 12.2 per cent in 1985 Rumer 1989, 199 200. In the 1970s a Gosplan research director reported that 10 12 per cent of the increment in real fixed capital was unutilized, owing to a shortage of labour Rumer 1989, 202. and that proportion could only have increased in the 1980s. The capital stock rose without a corresponding rise in GDP because there was no labour to operate the new capacity.
Allen 2001: Allen's preferred hypothesis is that TFP growth did slow because the USSR's capital investment decisions were terrible
Allen 2001: Allen's preferred hypothesis is that TFP growth did slow because the USSR's capital investment decisions were terrible: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3131928.pdf https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/0008-4085.00103 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858784395535319040/allen2001.pdf
Weitzman s econometrics imply a value of 0.403 a figure confirmed by Easterly and Fischer ~1995, 357! for the whole economy. But 0.4 is an unusually low value. Evidence for Japan and other advanced capitalist economies suggests a value of 1.0 or even greater ~Easterly and Fischer 1995, 359 61; Duffy and Papageorgiou 2000!. While simulations using an elasticity of substitution of 0.403 imply a growth slowdown, simulations with a value of 1.0 do not. With more substitutability between capital and labour, diminishing returns to capital are not substantial enough to cause stagnation, and this is why a high investment rate paid off in Japan but not in the USSR.
Weitzman and Easterly and Fischer speculate on reasons why the elasticity of substitution might have been lower in the USSR than elsewhere, without coming to firm conclusions. This is good; for, I will argue, the value of 0.4 is an illusion. The low measured value of the elasticity reflects massive errors in Soviet investment strategy rather than a real difference in technology. It was not purely happenstance that these errors occurred in the 1970s and 1980s; for the end of the surplus labour economy posed new management problems, and the party leadership bungled them.
Bad Investment Decisions: Siberia
investment of the USSR in Siberia involved huge wastes of resources
Failure of Planning
the USSR's non-mathematical, "command economy" planning was unable to handle increasingly complex production chains
the USSR's non-mathematical, "command economy" planning was unable to handle increasingly complex production chains: https://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/sovietplanningltc_seongjin_urpe20180928.pdf Stalinist planners tried to resolve the problem of complexity inherent in a planned economy by concentrating on a limited number of sectors. Indeed, Gosplan planned only a few strategic industries, targeting the ministries and not individual companies. [....] In 1951, Gosplan s Five-Year Plan was compiled for 127 products, while material balances, the main tool of planning, were prepared for 60 products, although there were millions of products in contemporary Russia (Gregory, 2004: 117, 152). [....] Accurate techniques like input-output tables or optimal linear programming, which could balance supply and demand, were never applied to Stalinist planning. Gosplan planned to produce goods or services on an aggregated, rather than disaggregated basis, so balancing the national economy through consistent planning was impossible from the start. In fact, Stalinist planning was not meant to achieve a balanced national economy: unbalanced growth was not a problem to be avoided but tolerated and even promoted.
the USSR's incentives system encouraged playing it safe, not playing it well
the USSR's incentives system encouraged playing it safe, not playing it well: https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/100th%20Congress/Gorbachev's%20Economic%20Plan%20Volume%20I%20(1438).pdf From the point of view of suppliers, the willingness of Soviet managers to pursue costs savings through asset replacement is deterred by what a leading Soviet investment expert terms "self reproduction", the propensity toward the perpetuation of existing technology, which has assured sources of material supply and provides near-certain production bonuses. [....] Reliance on longstanding sources of materials supply to insure against external (to the enterprise or ministry) supply disruptions also slows technical advance.3 2 Centralized planning promises a producer an adequate allocation of necessary inputs but provides no guarantee of timely and sufficient delivery. As a result, a good deal of Soviet machinery is produced in small machine shops attached to the consuming organization rather than in large-scale machinebuilding ministries. Only the specialized ministries, however, can afford to support the research and testing facilities required to develop advanced technology. To the degree that the propensity toward vertical integration (self-sufficiency) prevails, Soviet industry forgoes the benefits of division of labor that characterize modern industry in market economies. [....] Technological backwardness is also explained by insufficient supplier initiative. In market economies, most technical progress at the plant level originates in sales pressure by equipment suppliers. The basic Soviet shortcoming is institutional. In the Soviet system, research and development is separated originally from production. The incentives for R&D organizations reward expenditures of budget allocations more than completion of projects or the satisfaction of consumer demand.
Intensive and Extensive Growth
until the 1980's, the USSR did not prioritize "intensive" growth
until the 1980's, the USSR did not prioritize "intensive" growth: https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/100th%20Congress/Gorbachev's%20Economic%20Plan%20Volume%20I%20(1438).pdf As both Soviet and Western observers of Soviet economic development have repeatedly said,' the traditional Soviet approach to growth has stressed the rapid infusion of labor, fixed capital, and raw materials into industry. Compared with the path followed by industrializing market economies, there has been proportionately far less effort to increase the productivity of either existing or new manpower and capital assets. Since 1960, the USSR-among the major industrial economies-has experienced the most rapid growth of employment and, along with Japan, the fastest growth of fixed capital stock. In sharp contrast, the Soviet Union has shown the lowest rate of increase in both labor and capital productivity (table 1). In official Soviet jargon the traditional approach is termed "extensive" and the alternative path of stress upon productivity as "intensive". While Soviet planners have continually accorded lip service to productivity objectives under the rubric of "hidden production reserves", they have embraced intensive development as a major policy focus only within the past decade.
as a result, the USSR invested little into factory and machine replacement or modernization
as a result, the USSR invested little into factory and machine replacement or modernization: https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/100th%20Congress/Gorbachev's%20Economic%20Plan%20Volume%20I%20(1438).pdf In the mid-1970's, 56 percent of U.S. industrial investment was directed toward replacement and modernization. In the Soviet Union the proportion was only 29 percent in the late 1970's. While the U.S. proportion may be too high a standard for the Soviet Union, given slower U.S. industrial growth, some Soviet economists had recommended that the Soviet share should be doubled or tripled. The replacement share has in fact been steadily rising during the 1981-85 Five Year Plan, reaching 35 percent in 1984. [....] The advantages of an intensified replacement effort are several fold, according to special surveys carried out in the USSR. Labor productivity is said to be about 50 percent and capital productivity 86 percent higher than in new plant construction. These results reportedly were attained with cost savings of one half to two-thirds and with capacity being brought on stream 3-3.5 times as rapidly. [....] The accelerated retirement guidelines adopted in 1975, as noted earlier, have not been implemented. Official retirements for wear and tear, as reported in the annual statistical handbook, have shown no significant change. [....] During the 1970's the average age (number of years in production) of current machinery output rose significantly. The share of new products fell from 4.3 to 2.5 percent while the share of machinery in production for more than 10 years climbed from 20 to 28 percent.
Research and Development: Military Spending Prioritized
Allen 2001: military research remained innovative while civilian research fell behind
Allen 2001: military research remained innovative while civilian research fell behind: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3131928.pdf https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/0008-4085.00103 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858784395535319040/allen2001.pdf The increase in defence spending may have lowered productivity growth, however, by diverting R&D resources from civilian to military innovation. It is difficult to measure the rate of invention, but the available indicators suggest that it was declining in the USSR, at least for the civilian economy. The Soviets did publish considerable statistics on the number of new prototypes brought into use. While such numbers are always hard to interpret, Kontorovich ~1987, 1990! has argued that they indicate the volume of newly available technologies, and Amann ~1986! has pressed them into service. They show a decline in the absolute number of new inventions brought into use each year from the 1960s to 1985. Kontorovich ~1990, 267! has divided them into civilian and military innovations and argued that the fall was largely confined to the civilian sector. [....] If the Cold War was responsible for the drop in Soviet productivity growth, then it accounts for over half of the Soviet growth slowdown. TFP growth dropped from 1.5 per cent per year to 20.5 per cent between the 1960s and 1980 85. Reversing the productivity slowdown by adding 2 per cent to the 1980 85 GNP growth rate increases the latter from 2 to 4 per cent per year. This is still less than the 5.7 per cent growth of the 1960s, but certainly is a much better performance.
between 1950 and 1990, the USSR spent 10-20% of its GDP each year on defense (about 2x that of the USA)
between 1950 and 1990, the USSR spent 10-20% of its GDP each year on defense (about 2x that of the USA): https://nintil.com/2016/05/31/the-soviet-union-military-spending/
a subsection of the Senate report on USSR underperformance mainly blamed poor managerial incentives
a subsection of the Senate report on USSR underperformance mainly blamed poor managerial incentives: https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/100th%20Congress/Gorbachev's%20Economic%20Plan%20Volume%20I%20(1438).pdf The explanations for lagging Soviet technological progress, with its unfavorable consequences for the policy of intensive development, lie mainly in managerial incentives, the institutio nal relationships between research and development and production, and the technological drain imposed the priority given to defense production. Technological progress in market economies depends upon both consumer and supplier initiatives. In the Soviet system, the influence of the consumer is weak, except in defense production where the initiative comes from the Ministry of Defense with reinforcement from the top leadership.
about half of research and development funds and about half of new machine tools went to the defence industry
about half of research and development funds and about half of new machine tools went to the defence industry: https://www.amazon.com/Victory-Administrations-Strategy-Hastened-Collapse/dp/0871136333 The eleventh five-year plan that was being developed by the CPSU reflected this preoccupation and concern. It gave a very high priority for overcoming the perceived lag with the West in electronics. The plan called for a rise in output of industrial robots from 13,000 to 28,000 and machine tool development centers from 2,500 to 10,700. In the first two years of the new plan, investment in engineering-sector facilities for research and development, testing, and evaluation was said to be 50 percent above the funding for the whole of the previous five years. And R&D funds were to be especially concentrated on high-tech projects. **The trouble was that the best Soviet resources in the field were being directed toward the military-industrial base. Half of the machine tools were going to defense enterprises, which also employed the best scientists. At least half of all research and development expenditures were for the military. And the Reagan defense buildup particularly its emphasis on emerging technologies meant that more resources needed to be shifted to defense.** [....] The temper of the times meant that Gorbachev would be devoting even more to defense than had been the case in the past. The new five-year plan called for more spending on advanced weapons. **As Gorbachev would later admit, the planned rate of growth for defense in 1986 through 1990 was almost 8 percent per year, twice the rate of national income growth.22 All told, defense expenditures would rise an astonishing 45 percent in the next five years.**
Foreign Aid (Not Strong Reason for Decline)
aid to allies: $44 bilion
aid to allies: $44 bilion https://athens.indymedia.org/media/upload/2015/04/25/Roger_Keeran_Thomas_Kenny-Socialism_Betrayed__Behind_the_Collapse_of_the_Soviet_Union-International_Publishers_2004_nmzzdl4.pdf https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23263050.pdf By 1980, Soviet aid to its allies cost $44 billion a year, and arms spending consumed 25 to 30 percent of the economy. This drain on the Soviet economy exceeded by a factor of two to three what Western experts at the time estimated.681
Space Programs (Not Strong Reason for Decline)
space programs: 1965 $7.0 billion USA vs $5.3 billion USSR
Food Intake Rise Substantially
nutrition quality went up after the 1917 revolution (including collectivization), according to conscript height data
nutrition quality went up after the 1917 revolution (including collectivization), according to conscript height data: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03017605.2016.1268454 For the Russian/Soviet data the actual historical trend is a matter of some dispute. Our evidence seems to support the conclusions of Allen rather than those of Wheatcroft. When two independent sources of investigation deconvolution of adult heights on the one hand and Allen s indices of wages and prices on the other, mutually agree, the plausibility of each is reinforced. Given however, that the deconvolution technique is new in the field, we have presented a second study using completely different data from Austria. Again we find that the inferred food availability from deconvolution conforms plausibly to other historical sources. We have come to the conclusion that it is possible to use of deconvolution to infer past diets.
from 1960 to 1985, the USSR and USA had about equal median higher caloric intake (however, as the author notes, food was more expensive and lower quality [ie, less meat and dairy] in the USSR)
from 1960 to 1985, the USSR and USA had about equal median higher caloric intake (however, as the author notes, food was more expensive and lower quality [ie, less meat and dairy] in the USSR): https://nintil.com/2016/05/11/the-soviet-union-food/
the CIA document about USA / USSR food consumption: USSR and USA consume about as many calories, but USSR residents consume less meat, fish, sugar, dairy, and eggs (ie, "high-quality" food)
the CIA document about USA / USSR food consumption: USSR and USA consume about as many calories, but USSR residents consume less meat, fish, sugar, dairy, and eggs (ie, "high-quality" food): https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf
Employment Shift From Agriculture
from 1940 to 1989, the USSR's agricultural employment decreased from 54% to 19% (absolute decline: -.71%/yr, relative decline: ((19-54)/54)/(1989-1940)=-0.013%/yr); from
from 1940 to 1989, the USSR's agricultural employment decreased from 54% to 19% (absolute decline: -.71%/yr, relative decline: ((19-54)/54)/(1989-1940)=-0.013%/yr); from : https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/agriculture1996.pdf
from 1990 to 2018, Russia's agricultural employment decreased from 14% to 6% (absolute decline: -.29%/yr, relative decline: ((6-14)/14)/(2018-1990)=-0.020%/yr)
from 1990 to 2018, Russia's agricultural employment decreased from 14% to 6% (absolute decline: -.29%/yr, relative decline: ((6-14)/14)/(2018-1990)=-0.020%/yr): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?locations=RU
Agricultural Investment Grew Quickly
from 1940 to 1986-9, the USSR substantially increased investment in agriculture from 10 to 20% of total investment
this statistic doesn't seem comparable? worldwide investment in agriculture
Agricultural Efficiency Grew Poorly
the USSR's agricultural sector only grew as quickly as the US's until the 70's and slower afterwards
the USSR's agricultural sector only grew as quickly as the US's until the 70's and slower afterwards: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/agriculture1996.pdf
In the 1950s and 1960s the growth of agricultural output in the USSR substantially exceeded the United States record. The gap was essentially due to the higher rate of increase of Soviet inputs, including a higher rate of retention of farmworkers in agriculture, for despite heavy Soviet investments the rate of increase in capital intensity of production was actually more rapid in the United States.
But what this meant was that, since the level of output per worker and of multifactor productivity was far higher in the United States to begin with, the static efficiency gap did not close.
What was worse, in the 1970s the dynamic efficiency of American farming improved a little (though not recovering the rate of improvement in the 1950s), while that of Soviet farming deteriorated further.
after the USSR collapsed, fertilizer use dramatically declined but wheat yields per hectare flatlined
eyeballing it, yield per hectare appears to increase about as quickly post-USSR as during the USSR (1953-2010)
Net Food Imports
the USSR and Russia are both been net importers of food
the USSR and Russia are both been net importers of food: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/TP
Early Lifespan Greatly Expanded
the healthcare system of the USSR presided over an enormous rise in life expectancy at birth: <>
the healthcare system of the USSR presided over an enormous rise in life expectancy at birth: <>
the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years (by the 1960's, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA)
the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years (by the 1960's, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA): https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html
life expectancy prior to World War 1 was 32 years
life expectancy prior to World War 1 was 32 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Russia#Pre-soviet_era
Before the revolution annual mortality was 29.4 per 1000 and infant mortality 260 per 1000 births. In 1913 life expectancy was 32 years. The cholera epidemic of 1910 killed 100,000 people. A typhus epidemic between 1918 and 1922 caused 2.5 million deaths, and doctors were particularly affected. There was an outbreak of malaria in 1920. The Institute of Tropical Medicine in Moscow instituted a programme of registration of cases and free distribution of quinine. The famine of 1921/2 caused widespread starvation. As many as 27 million people were affected. Another cholera outbreak between 1921 and 1923 caused an estimated 13 million deaths. By 1926 life expectancy had reached 44 years.[4]
Good Emegency Medicine
the emergency medicine of the USSR was extremely high quality
the emergency medicine of the USSR was extremely high quality: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10282748 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/722822736870637638/Anomalies_in_Soviet_healthcare.pdf
The emergency part of the ambulance system, the "Skoraya Pomosch", is comprised of specially equipped ambulances staffed by a physician, a feldsher, and a specially trained driver. These vehicles, radioconnected through a dispatch center, are even specialzied by cardiovascular, pediatric, psychiatric, neurological, and gynecological services. The ambulance system purports to be able to reach any citizen within 15 minutes in every major metropolitan area in the Soviet Union and within 25 minutes in most rural areas. In 1983, in Sochi, a Black Sea resort attracting 4 million vacationers per year, over 215,000 calls were received and answered within an average of 4 minutes[.]
Ideology and Early Semashko System and Stalinism
Braun 2009: excellent quote: "either the lice will vanquish socialism, or socialism will vanquish the lice"; "It was only the German fascination for race and heredity which he did not share"
Braun 2009: excellent quote: "either the lice will vanquish socialism, or socialism will vanquish the lice"; "It was only the German fascination for race and heredity which he did not share": https://www.comparativ.net/v2/article/view/235 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/922721099777712158/braun2009.pdf
Braun 2009
Weinberg 2007: discusses the partial embrace and then rejection of eugenics by the Soviet Union
Weinberg 2007: discusses the partial embrace and then rejection of eugenics by the Soviet Union: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10835-007-9040-9
Semashko 1946: no access
Inequality by Class and Politics
the USSR had increasingly unequal healthcare
the USSR had increasingly unequal healthcare: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10282748 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/722822736870637638/Anomalies_in_Soviet_healthcare.pdf
Contrary to ideology, not all citizens in the Soviet Union, nor all healthcare delivery institutions, are equal. Class levels of medical care are represented in distinct systems, and variations in quality exist between hospitals and polyclinics for high level government officials, research institutes and teaching hospitals, other urban facilities, and outlying rural hospitals. Members of the Communist Party, residents of large urban areas, particularly Moscow, and those who hold the more privileged positions in the society have access to a series of polyclinics and hospitals that are superior to others in the country.
Expenses Over Time
healthcare in the USSR was remarkably cheap (for its results) -- between 1960 and 1984, healthcare represented just 5.6% and 4.7% of GNP
healthcare in the USA was not (for its results) -- between 1960 and 1984, healthcare represented 5.0% ($27.2bn of $545bn) and 10.0% ($405 of $4073bn) of GNP
by 1989, the USSR spent 3.4% of GNP on healthcare (~90% paid by the state) and the USA 11.4%
early healthcare in the USA covered very little: in the USA in 1965 (before Medicare, Medicaid) only about 2/3 of people had hospital or surgical insurance -- not even including primary, dental, pharmaceutical, etc.
early healthcare in the USA covered very little: in the USA in 1965 (before Medicare, Medicaid) only about 2/3 of people had hospital or surgical insurance -- not even including primary, dental, pharmaceutical, etc.: https://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/HealthCareEarly1960s.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4193636/
More than 70 percent of the population had some form of hospital insurance by 1965 (though less than one-half of the elderly population did), 67 percent had surgical insurance, and there was a growing market for major medical insurance (Health Insurance Institute, 1980). But few were insured for primary or out-of-hospital care. Of the members of the general population who reported they had pains in the heart, 25 percent did not see a physician (Andersen and Anderson, 1967).
Failure to Curb Alcohol Addiction
~1/3 of death in the Russia in 1980 (and today) was due to alcohol
~1/3 of death in the Russia in 1980 (and today) was due to alcohol: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-25961063
Gorbachev's anti-alcohol program cut mortality from ~11.5 to ~10 per 1000 per year, a 13% reduction
Gorbachev's anti-alcohol program cut mortality from ~11.5 to ~10 per 1000 per year, a 13% reduction: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3818525/
Healthcare Stagnation
the USSR saw no reduction of infant mortality from the 1970 to 1986
in the 1980's, the USSR saw substantially lower life expectancy and higher infant and maternal mortality than the USA
in the 1980's, the USSR saw substantially lower life expectancy and higher infant and maternal mortality than the USA: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.10.3.71 https://sci-hub.se/10.1377/hlthaff.10.3.71
starting in the 1960's, the USSR's healthcare system failed to see substantial gains
starting in the 1960's, the USSR's healthcare system failed to see substantial gains: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10282748 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/722822736870637638/Anomalies_in_Soviet_healthcare.pdf
In barely 20 years since World War II, the USSR matched 60 years of US and European health progress; however, dramatic and unusual reversals have emerged since the mid-1960s. Feshbach estimates that the crude death rate per 1000 rose 50% from 6.9 in 1964 to 10.3 in 1980. There has been a remarkable achievement in infant mortality reduction from 1950 to 1971, but the rate has apparently increased embarassing levels. The Soviet government has not reported health status data to the World Health Organization since the early 1970s.23 There is an acknowledged coronary disease epidemic; cancer-related deaths have significantly increased; and the category of accidents, poisonings, and injuries makes up the third major cause of death.9 Significant discussion of the nature and cause of these new mortality and morbidity patterns is beclouded by the absence of current Soviet government-issued data.
starting in the 1960's, the USSR's healthcare system was unable to handle chronic illnesses and faced systemic underfunding and shortages
starting in the 1960's, the USSR's healthcare system was unable to handle chronic illnesses and faced systemic underfunding and shortages: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/73aiiu/what_was_healthcare_like_in_the_soviet_union/ http://archive.is/qMwgJ [W]hile the early Soviet healthcare system (early in this case largely means pre-WWII, and sometimes even pre-1930) was well prepared to deal with fractured bones and cholera, it was poorly equipped to deal with complicated conditions and mental illnesses. This approach, however, still allowed Russian (as it varied between national republics) life-expectancy to peak at or around 70 years in the mid 1960s, not far from the Western European averages at the time. This translates to around 64 years for men and 73 years for women (with the corresponding figures for France and the US in 1965 being approximately 67.5 and 66.8 for men, and 74.7 and 73.7 for women respectively). [....] From that point onward ardiovascular diseases became one of the primary causes of non-violent death in the Soviet Union. This is the trend that was noted across the industrialized world, with low rates of infectious diseases, and growing rates of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. [...] Increases in substance abuse also started to take a toll. The amount of resources devoted to healthcare did not increase accordingly (it is estimated that it stayed relatively constant at around 2-3% between 1960 and 1970). In comparison, in United States it increased from 5% in 1960, to around 8% in 1983. As a result of that, as well as the start of the decline of the Soviet economy as a whole, in the early 1970s Soviet Union became the only major industrialized nation that experienced a decline in life expectancy at that time (it fell to around 63-64 years in 1982), with an increase in the gap between males and females (an average male was expected to live around 10-12 years less than an average female at the time).
Post-Collapse Mortality
privatization in the former USSR and Eastern Bloc was followed by substantial increases in mortality (~20%)
privatization in the former USSR and Eastern Bloc was followed by substantial increases in mortality (~20%): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673609600052
however, much of this decline was due to the repeal of Gorbachev's anti-alcohol programs
Gender Pay Gap
in the 1980's, women were paid about 70-80% of male counterparts -- comparable to the gender wage gap found in OECD countries
in the 1980's, women were paid about 70-80% of male counterparts -- comparable to the gender wage gap found in OECD countries: https://academic.oup.com/cje/article/21/4/431/1729657
The gender wage gap we have found in Taganrog in 1989 is of similar size to those reported by Ferber (1991), Rosenfeld and Kalleberg (1991), and Blau and Kahn (1992), for various OECD countries. It is smaller than those for Japan, the UK or US, but larger than for others, particularly the Scandinavian countries.
It seems that the attempt by women to cope with their 'dobule burden' by working fewer hours was encouraged by wage policies for a key category of workers. This -- very partial -- alleviation of the 'double burden' should be seen in the context of the 'demographic problem' -- the great concern of the Soviet leadership about low birth-rates in the 1960's and 1970's, and the simultaneous need for highly educated female labor power. Fundamental change in gender roles and in the gender division of labour, including that in the household, was never seriously proposed (Posadskaya, 1994). Feminism remained a heresy, and the increase in quality and quantity of household goods and public services, constantly promised to Soviet women, remained a dream.
Formally, the Soviet wage-system was based on productivity -- schooling, skill, efficiency, and 'importance for the national economy'. Yet, there appears to be a systematic undervalution of work considered to be 'feminine'.
after transition, MTF see reduced wages and FTM see increased wages
after transition, MTF see reduced wages and FTM see increased wages: https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/bejeap/8/1/article-bejeap.2008.8.1.1862.xml.xml https://sci-hub.se/10.2202/1935-1682.1862 n=46, 16 mtf & 27 ftm
These estimates imply that male-to-female respondents ( malei = -1) lose about 31 percent of their earnings after their gender transition (-0.107 - 0.206 = 0.313). Female-to-male respondents ( malei = +1) are estimated to gain about 10 percent in earnings following their gender transition (-0.107 + 0.206 = 0.099).
Analyzing the earnings of transgender workers before and after their gender changes, we find that MTFs experience a substantial and statistically significant decrease in earnings while FTMs experience either no change or a slight increase. These findings suggest that the male gender carries a workplace benefit that cannot be carried over in a gender transition.
Sexuality Liberalized Substantially Over Time (Research Is Low-Medium Quality)
early-middle USSR: interviews with middle-class urban Russian women suggested that the key driver for sex and relationships was natalism (for those born 1920-45) and natalism plus romance (1945-65)
early-middle USSR: interviews with middle-class urban Russian women suggested that the key driver for sex and relationships was natalism (for those born 1920-45) and natalism plus romance (1945-65): https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/women-better-sex-under-socialism-review https://u1lib.org/book/3644970/edaf3f https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/_3JPDwAAQBAJ
Two Russian sociologists, Anna Temkina and Elena Zdravomyslova, conducted in-depth, biographical interviews with two sets of middle-class Russian women in 1997 and 2005.
[They] found that the Soviet silent generation (those born between 1920 and 1945), primarily related to the pro-natalist script, meaning that sex was something you endured in marriage to have babies. Love and pleasure had nothing to do with it. And even though Soviet women had access to abortion again after 1955, the lack of birth control and the double burden of work and family responsibilities conspired to depress sexual function in many women. There is no doubt about it: for this generation, Soviet sex sucked.
[They] found that middle-class urban women born between 1945 and 1965 described a marked move away from the pro-natalist script. Although the pro-natalist view of sexual relations continued, it was complemented by two new ways of talking about sexuality: romance and friendship. The emergence of the romantic script was the result of a larger shift in Soviet public narratives about sexuality.
This romantic script of sexuality is exactly what early socialists such as August Bebel and Alexandra Kollontai would have envisioned for a society in which economic considerations had less influence on the choice of an amorous partner.
middle-late USSR: interviews with middle-class urban Russian women suggested that, in the late Soviet period (1965-89), the key driver for sex and relationships was romance plus friendship
middle-late USSR: interviews with middle-class urban Russian women suggested that, in the late Soviet period (1965-89), the key driver for sex and relationships was romance plus friendship: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/women-better-sex-under-socialism-review https://u1lib.org/book/3644970/edaf3f https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/_3JPDwAAQBAJ
The other way to describe sex that began to emerge among middle-class women in the late Soviet period is the friendship script. Unlike what we would call friends with benefits uncommitted, recreational sex with a partner of the opposite sex the Soviet friendship script described sex that occurred in a meaningful relationship between two people who worked together or shared a social circle, with the partners using sex as a way to show each other affection and respect. This friendship script presumably arose because women had access to their own resources and didn t depend on men to provide for their material needs. Because some urban Soviet women felt secure in their economic position, sexuality lost its exchange value and became something to be shared.
post-USSR: interviews with middle-class urban Russian women suggested that, after the fall of the Soviet Union (1991-2005), sex was re-commodified and re-coupled with material gains
post-USSR: interviews with middle-class urban Russian women suggested that, after the fall of the Soviet Union (1991-2005), sex was re-commodified and re-coupled with material gains: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/women-better-sex-under-socialism-review https://u1lib.org/book/3644970/edaf3f https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/_3JPDwAAQBAJ
If sexual economics theory is on the right track, you would guess that the introduction of free markets and the rapid dismantling of the social welfare state after the collapse of the USSR would precipitate a return of a worldview in which women s sexuality is once again a commodity. And this is exactly what Temkina and Zdravomyslova found in their 1997 and 2005 interviews with women of the post-Soviet generation. In addition to the hedonistic script, in which sex is purely physical for the purpose of experiencing individual pleasure, often assisted by sex toys and other products that can be purchased in a capitalist economy (a script absent, for obvious reasons, in the Soviet era), they note the emergence of something they called the instrumental script, which became ubiquitous after the advent of free markets.
The commodification of women s sexuality in Russia could be observed in the dramatic increase in sex work, pornography, strategic marriages for money, and what the authors call sponsorship, whereby wealthy men sponsor their mistresses. According to Temkina and Zdravomyslova, this instrumental script was very seldom found in the narratives of sexual life of the older women who grew up in the Soviet Union.
Lack of Democracy
polity5 description of the Soviet Union: the USSR and most other ML states were not pure autocracies, because the mass parties involved mass participation (and therefore, some de facto level of democracy), but the institutions those party members staffed were autocratic in the extreme
polity5 description of the Soviet Union: the USSR and most other ML states were not pure autocracies, because the mass parties involved mass participation (and therefore, some de facto level of democracy), but the institutions those party members staffed were autocratic in the extreme: http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/p5manualv2018.pdf
The revolutionary Soviet state in Russia provided a new model of autocracy which combined democratic forms--a mass party and nominally representative institutions--with near-absolute state control of social, economic and political life. In the middle run the new model was proven, in Europe and China, to be almost as resilient as the Western democratic forms, although less efficient for some social and economic purposes. The largely peaceful, post-1990 transformations of Soviet states to more liberal democratic forms of governance appears to authenticate the democratic, normative element in this model and its influence on the quality of authority transition.
Death Rates Before the Ussr
Wheatcroft 2002: comparing Russian and British execution rates before the 1917 revolution
Great Purge: Politburo Deaths 1917
Politburo of 1917
Great Purge: Politburo Deaths 1919
Politburo of 1919
Reactions to Khrushchev's Secret Speech
CPUSA statement: "the crimes against innocent people perpetrated under Stalin's leadership are, in fact, alien to so. cialism. They were an intolerable hindrance to the advance of socialism"
CPUSA statement: "the crimes against innocent people perpetrated under Stalin's leadership are, in fact, alien to so. cialism. They were an intolerable hindrance to the advance of socialism" https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/1956-1960/index.htm https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/1956-1960/pa-20th-congress.pdf
Howard Fast, CPUSA member and writer for the Daily Worker
Howard Fast, CPUSA member and writer for the Daily Worker: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/468941097 http://www.trussel.com/hf/onleave.htm https://u1lib.org/book/21715398/ce0e8c
I wonder if there is any comrade here who can say now, out of what we know and have seen, that if our own Party leaders had the power of execution, he or she would be alive today? They all looked at me, but no one broke the silence. We had come to the end of a road, and we knew by what grace we were alive. We knew it and oh, what a terrible knowledge that was. Each one according to his talent and ability some better, some worse had given his life to the cause of mankind, the brotherhood of man and we knew that for this the reward was death.
John Gates, CPUSA editor of the Daily Worker: """there was more liberty under Franco's fascism than there is in any communist country"""
John Gates, CPUSA editor of the Daily Worker: https://spartacus-educational.com/USAworkerD.htm
there was more liberty under Franco's fascism than there is in any communist country
Waves of Executions
Wheatcroft 2002: Russia and the Soviet Union experienced six waves of mass executions: after 1905, during the revolution in 1917-1921, during the famine in 1930-31, during the Great Purge in 1937-38, during World War 2 in 1942, and after the war in 1952
Wheatcroft 2002: Russia and the Soviet Union experienced six waves of mass executions: after 1905, during the revolution in 1917-1921, during the famine in 1930-31, during the Great Purge in 1937-38, during World War 2 in 1942, and after the war in 1952: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230506114_6 https://u1lib.org/book/813891/48c827 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854114895029076009/wheatcroft2002.pdf
Fake Graph: Gulag Death Rates
fake graph of gulag death rates
fake graph of gulag death rates: http://socdoneleft.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/prisoner_mortality_rate_in_gulags.jpg transcript:
Prisoner Mortality Rate Within Gulags // Tsar Rule of Russia // Communist Party Rule of Russia // Sources: Demographic Modernization of Russia. 1900-2000. Ed. A.G. Vishnevsky. M., 2006, p. 432. // Tsaplin V.V. Archival materials on the number of prisoners in the late 30s. // Questions of history, 1991. [Wheatcroft 1996] The German and Soviet repression and mass killings, 1930-45. In: Europe-Asia Studies, 1996, vol. 48, No 8. Wheatcroft S.G. The crisis of the late Tsarist penal system. Challenging traditional views of Russian history, 2002, pp 27-54. // See also Otcheti po glavnomu tyuremnomu upravieniyu 1885-1915. Spb-PG.
source of the fake death rates: source 4: Wheatcroft 2002: Challenging Traditional Views of Russian History: the error here is simply that the graphmaker read Table 2.8 as per hundred rather than per thousand, so all results for the Tsarist period are multiplied by 10
source of the fake death rates: source 4: Wheatcroft 2002: Challenging Traditional Views of Russian History: the error here is simply that the graphmaker read Table 2.8 as per hundred rather than per thousand, so all results for the Tsarist period are multiplied by 10: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230506114_2 https://u1lib.org/book/813891/48c827 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/945470312336748625/wheatcroft2002.pdf
not the source of the pre-1900 death rates: source 1: [Vishnevsky] 2005: [Demographic modernization of Russia, 1900-2000]
Wages: A Very Small Slight Positive
misinfo source todo xxx claims paid work
Summary
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: real Soviet economic growth beyond the Tsarist era was almost *completely* concentrated in a brief moment between rapid collectivization (31-32) and the Great Purge (37-39)
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: real Soviet economic growth beyond the Tsarist era was almost *completely* concentrated in a brief moment between rapid collectivization (31-32) and the Great Purge (37-39): https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-36238-4_1 https://u1lib.org/book/3578737/3fa58b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/945446559049465866/davies2018.pdf
Economic Consequences of Authoritarianism: Lower Overall Economic Growth
Allen 2001: collectivization explains just 8% of the USSR's capital stock growth in 1928-1939 (mostly because terror & famine moved more peasants into cities); high capital reinvestment explains and soft budgets explain 92%
Allen 2001: collectivization explains just 8% of the USSR's capital stock growth in 1928-1939 (mostly because terror & famine moved more peasants into cities); high capital reinvestment explains and soft budgets explain 92%: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3131928 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/0008-4085.00103 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858784395535319040/allen2001.pdf 318/343.9=0.925, 1-201.0/343.9=0.416, 1-258.7/343.9
The simulations show that collectivization had a negative effect on all indicators - GDP, investment, consumption, and, of course, population - in the mid-1930s. However, collectivization pushed up the growth rate enough in the rest of the decade to raise GDP, capital accumulation, and consumption above the 1939 levels they would have realized had the agrarian system of the 1920s been preserved. Collectivization raised growth by increasing rural-urban migration: First, low procurement prices lowered farm incomes below the level they would have otherwise reached. Migration increased in consequence, since it was a function of the ratio of urban to rural income. Second, the deportation of 'kulaks' and state terrorism in general increased the rate of rural-urban migration at every ratio of urban to rural consumption. Terrorism increased economic growth to that small degree.
^ Allen 2001: Stalin was not necessary: while Stalin's Five-Year Plans increased the rate of reinvestment e, other senior Soviet economists had long supported increasing investment in heavy industry long before Stalin rose to power
^ Allen 2001: Stalin was not necessary: while Stalin's Five-Year Plans increased the rate of reinvestment e, other senior Soviet economists had long supported increasing investment in heavy industry long before Stalin rose to power: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3131928.pdf https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/0008-4085.00103 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858784395535319040/allen2001.pdf
Industrialization Without Growth
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: the 1st Five-Year Plan dramatically grew industry but didn't increase overall productivity or economic well-being
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: the 1st Five-Year Plan dramatically grew industry but didn't increase overall productivity or economic well-being: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-36238-4_1 https://u1lib.org/book/3578737/3fa58b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/945446559049465866/davies2018.pdf
The forced industrialisation of the 1930s achieved a Great Breakthrough . It changed the structure of the economy abruptly, pushing up the shares of industry in output and employment. The rush of labour up the productivity gradient from agriculture to industry should have improved allocation in the economy as a whole; it should have raised output per head across the economy, more rapidly in agriculture than in industry. But the outcome was different: it reduced productivity in both agriculture and industry, so that the overall results fell far short of expectations.14 In the period of the frst fve-year plan, there was industrialisation without growth (Table 1).
Destruction of Economic Incentives
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: the Great Purge destroyed reliable social incentives toward productivity
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: the Great Purge destroyed reliable social incentives toward productivity: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-36238-4_1 https://u1lib.org/book/3578737/3fa58b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/945446559049465866/davies2018.pdf
Taking a longer view, the damage to productivity is not hard to understand. The working arrangements of all economic systems rely on incentives and norms of behaviour. The Bolshevik Revolution destroyed the old incentives and norms and struggled to replace them with new ones. Private property was confscated in successive waves from the Revolution of 1917 to the collectivisation of peasant farms, launched at the end of 1929. The waves of confscation destroyed incentives to work, to save, and to innovate. The famine of the early 1930s arose from the interplay of unexpectedly poor weather with the confscation of grain stocks to meet the needs of industrialisation. Famine and the repression that accompanied it, destroyed millions of lives. Later in the 1930s, the purges arose from the party leaders need to secure their regime and from Stalin s calculation that the greatest danger to the regime arose from the potential and even unconscious enemies that were hiding around him and more widely in society. The purges also destroyed millions of lives by mass killing and ruined further millions by condemning the victims not killed at once to forced resettlement and slave labour. Their legacy, like that of collectivisation, was a demoralised society characterised by mistrust and alienation from regime objectives and social norms.
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: there's no evidence that the Great Purge increased labor discipline
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: there's no evidence that the Great Purge increased labor discipline: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-36238-4_1 https://u1lib.org/book/3578737/3fa58b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/945446559049465866/davies2018.pdf
The mass purges caused great human suffering, affecting not only the victims but also their families and friends. Their effectiveness in producing an orderly society is very doubtful. David Shearer concludes that legal, judicial, and social-order institutions of Soviet society were in nearly complete disarray at the end of the purges and that disruption caused by the purges recreated the conditions of social chaos that mass social cleansing was supposed to remedy. 38 And there is no evidence that the sudden removal of part of the labour force in a factory or kolkhoz led to an improvement in labour discipline or in industrial effciency generally
^ Shearer 2009: source for above: the great purges destroyed social order, increased death and chaos, killed millions, created millions of orphans and refugees, increased crime, and generally increased "chaos"
^ Shearer 2009: source for above: the great purges destroyed social order, increased death and chaos, killed millions, created millions of orphans and refugees, increased crime, and generally increased "chaos": https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1261946699 https://u1lib.org/book/3408717/a947f3 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/970482310594056222/shearer2009.pdf
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: the Great Purge reversed economic growth in part because they destroyed leaders of Soviet economic organizations and encouraged worker absenteeism
Wheatcroft and Davies 2018: the Great Purge reversed economic growth in part because they destroyed leaders of Soviet economic organizations and encouraged worker absenteeism: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-36238-4_1 https://u1lib.org/book/3578737/3fa58b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/945446559049465866/davies2018.pdf
3: The Effect of the Repressions on the Economy: While the effect of the mass purges on the economy as a whole has not yet been clearly established, it is certain that the nomenklatura purges were an important factor in the deterioration of economic performance in industry, transport, and construction.39 A signifcant slowdown in the economy began in the last quarter of 1936 (Vol. 6: 313). It is tempting to conclude that this was due to the removal of key fgures: Pyatakov in heavy industry, Lifshits on the railways, and Mar yasin at Gosbank. In each case the arrest of the key fgure was accompanied by a wave of arrests of their offcials.40 The less successful performance of the economy continued in the following years. The waves of arrests led to a pronounced shortage of qualifed and experienced personnel and were closely accompanied and followed by a deterioration in economic performance.41 In the coal industry, arrests of senior personnel were so extensive in the frst few months of 1937 that in March the deputy head of the Commissariat of Heavy Industry s Chief Coal Administration complained to his superiors of the complete collapse of work in the mine construction trust Shakhtostroi. Two months later he complained that no work had been done in the trust for fve months because the whole board of the trust had been arrested.42 Arrests were widespread throughout the industry. Coal output per day declined steadily in the months January May 1937, and did not recover to the level of December 1936 until November 1937.43 According to David Hoffmann, who has made an extensive study of Moscow in this period, labor discipline deteriorated rapidly with the onset of the purges (as shown by a marked increase in worker absenteeism and tardiness), and resulted in a substantial fall in factory production. 44
Economoic Consequences of Authoritarianism: Lower Productivity From Gulags
Ivanova et al 2000: several productivity estimates of forced labor in gulags suggest it was ~52% as productive as regular labor (estimated at 64%, 55%, and 39%)
Ivanova et al 2000: several productivity estimates of forced labor in gulags suggest it was ~52% as productive as regular labor (estimated at 64%, 55%, and 39%): https://books.google.com/books?id=BvovCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA86#v=onepage https://u1lib.org/book/15044254/5541d3 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960035786055626752/ivanova2000.pdf soruce:
33. TsAODM [Central Archive of Social Movements of the City of Moscow], f. 3352, op. 3, d. 175, t. 1, I. 32; d. 355, I. 43. 34. Ibid., d. 268, I. 121; d. 355, I. 39. 35. Ibid., d. 355, I. 42. 36. Ibid., d. 393, I. 10-11.
Davies and Wheatcroft 1980: "labor productivity in the [justice] system was a fraction of that of free labor"
Zhuravskaya Guriev Markevich 2021: the lower labor productivity of GULag workers is difficult to calculate, because GULag working conditions differed in mechanizatoin, and labor imprisonment may have had externalities
Zhuravskaya Guriev Markevich 2021: the lower labor productivity of GULag workers is difficult to calculate, because GULag working conditions differed in mechanizatoin, and labor imprisonment may have had externalities: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3962960 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/970484150614229012/zhuravskaya2021.pdf
It is, however, often difficult to estimate the costs and benefits of coercion and punishment in the Soviet command economy. For example, according to Gulag managers, labor productivity of prisoners, who accounted for 2% of the Soviet labor force in the early 1950s, was about 50% to 60% lower than that of free labor. The level of mechanization and, more generally, working conditions, however, were very different, complicating such comparisons. Accounting for possible externalities of forced labor would make such cost-benefit analyses of forced labor even more complex (Gregory and Lazarev, eds, 2003). Miller and Smith (2015) build a model that rationalizes the Soviet forced labor system, arguing that the threat of imprisonment allowed the government to extract a greater share of worker surplus.
Censorship: Shutting Down Alternative Visions of Socialist Economics
Seongjin 2017: Stalin's ascent corresponded with the termination of the debate over socialist planning
Seongjin 2017: Stalin's ascent corresponded with the termination of the debate over socialist planning: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1113864664 https://u1lib.org/book/5238863/535707 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/970470600361537586/westra2017.pdf All the debates on planning during the NEP suddenly stopped with Stalin s counterrevolution in 1929. In 1931 Stalin purged and executed most of the planning experts, such as Kondratiev, Chayanov, Groman, Ginzberg, Rubin et al., branding them as Menshevik counterrevolutionaries. [...] Stalin himself discarded *The Balance of the National Economy of the USSR, 1923 24* as just juggling with figures (Stalin, 1954a: 178), signaling the physical termination of planning specialists. Ironically, the so-called Stalinist planned economy was born on the corpses of almost all the contemporary Marxist planners.
Shearer 1996: todo xxx
Shearer 1996: todo xxx: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/422853897 https://u1lib.org/book/3408651/438c08 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/970470835917836309/shearer1996.pdf
Shearer argues that a centralized state-controlled economic system was the consciously conceived political creation of Stalinist leaders rather than the inevitable by-product of socialist industrialization. Focusing on the different economic and bureaucratic cultures within the industrial system, Shearer reconstructs the debates in 1928 and 1929 over administrative, financial, and commercial reform. He uses information from recently opened archives to show that attempts by the state's trading organizations to create a commercial economy enjoyed wide support, offering a model that combined planning and rapid industrialization with social democracy and economic prosperity. In an effort to crush the syndicate movement and establish tight political control over the economy, Stalinist leaders intervened with a program of radical reforms. Shearer demonstrates that professional engineers, planners and industrial administrators in many cases actively supported the creation of a powerful industrial state unhampered by domestic social and economic constraints. The paradoxical result, Shearer shows, was a loss of control. The overly centralized system that emerged during the first Five-Year Plan was rendered incoherent by periodic economic crises and the continuing influence of partially suppressed social and market forces.
Dogmatism and Blindness Toward Authoritarianism
the USSR's dogmatism prevented serious engagement with begging and destitution
the USSR's dogmatism prevented serious engagement with begging and destitution: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annales-histoire-sciences-sociales-english-edition/article/excluded-begging-in-the-postwar-soviet-union/AA690C29B7D90A8CE8648A7D7080CF34 https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/S2398568200000236
Official rhetoric considered begging -- along with other social deviancies -- as a vestige of the past, destined to disappear with the construction of Socialist society. The idea of construction presupposed a concerted fight against these vestiges. Those who transmitted these values were stigmatized for being socially excluded elements or parasites who should be re-educated, either voluntarily or by force.
As the last foundations of Socialism were being laid, the reality of begging contradicted official declarations concerning the national eradication of poverty (nishcheta). Begging was henceforth considered an avatar of parasitic existence, a phenomenon with no social or economic justification in the Soviet Union, a simple outcome of human vice.
Ideology was another systemic constraint. Belief in the superiority of Socialism over Capitalism, particularly regarding social benefits and quality of life, prevented an appropriate analysis of reality. These systemic constraints dominated both governmental and social discourse.
Soviet society was based on the principle of exclusion on several levels. When the authorities gave the signal to exclude someone, society reacted accordingly, chasing from their midst those enemies of the people, the rootless cosmopolitans, the parasites, and the good-for-nothings.
Suppression of Data
Notzon et al 1998: Soviets suppressed homicide and suicide data until Gorbachov
Notzon et al 1998: Soviets suppressed homicide and suicide data until Gorbachov: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/187318 https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/jama.279.10.793 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1002743337696108595/notzon1998.pdf
The Soviets suppressed information on homicide and suicide deaths until the late 1980s. However, recent access to Soviet files confirms that rather than removing all deaths due to homicides and suicides from mortality reporting, the Soviets added these deaths to the cause not specified category. In addition, all restrictions on the release of data disappeared by the late 1980s, so it is unlikely that such practices would affect the measurement of mortality trends from 1990 and the following years.
Shkolnikov Mesl Vallin 1994: Soviets suppressed homicide, suicide, and work accidents data until 1998 under Gorbachov
Shkolnikov Mesl Vallin 1994: Soviets suppressed homicide, suicide, and work accidents data until 1998 under Gorbachov: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233397/ https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/5530/premature-death-in-the-new-independent-states http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/908944995
Second, until 1988, certain cause-of-death items in the Soviet classification were not used in the regular statistical tables; these causes (cholera, plague, suicide, homicide, and accidents at work) were hidden for political reasons. To maintain correct totals for all causes combined, the hidden causes were mixed with ill-defined ones. However, the hidden causes were tabulated separately in a top secret special table, which we finally were allowed to access for the years 1963 to 1987. The analysis of these data provided below helps clarify the reasons why these causes were kept so secret. In 1970, for instance, the standardized death rate by homicide was about eight times as high as the European average rate.
Suppression of Mainstream Science
overview
biology: inheritance
physics: big bang
Scope of Deaths
the Kiev Court of Appeals, which finds that the USSR conducted genocide, only asserts that 3.941 million Ukranians directly died from famine
total deaths: 4-5 million
total deaths: 4-5 million: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/152086.pdf Previously I had always argued that the demographic evidence did not incline me to believe that the scale of mortality from the 1932/33 famine was comparable with that from the 1921/22 famine and that it was unlikely to have been more than 3 to 4 million. The evidence of these registration figures inclines me to revise my position and to suggest that the scale of mortality from the 1932/33 famine may have been somewhat larger than I had earlier suggested and might be as high as 4 to 5 million. These figures are much lower than many of the excess mortality and population loss figures that are cited in the West. Mace believes that 5-7 million for the Ukraine alone is a 'conservative figure',23 Conquest claims 5 million Ukrainian famine deaths, and 8 million overall including the North Caucasus and Kaza- khstan; but on top of this he wishes to add another 6.5 million deaths 'as a result of dekulakization'.24 The figures given by Mace and Conquest are impossible to accept.
Consensus
Robert Conquest, 2007
Robert Conquest, 2007: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest Holodomor was man-made, partially intentional, and not genocidal: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668130600652217 https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iakh/HIS2319/h16/pensumliste/stalin-and-the-soviet-famine-of-1932-33_-a-reply-to-ellman.pdf https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668130600652217
Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine? No. What I argue is that with resulting famine imminent, he could have prevented it, but put "Soviet interest" other than feeding the starving first thus consciously abetting it.
Yaroslav Bilinsky, 2007: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal
Yaroslav Bilinsky, 2007: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14623529908413948 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/14623529908413948
My argument, however, is that both logic and political usage in Ukraine point in one direction, that of the terror-famine being genocidal. Stalin hated the Ukrainians, as accepted as a fact by Sakharov, revealed in the telegram to Zatonsky and inferred from his polemics with the Yugoslav communist Semich. Stalin decided to collectivize Soviet agriculture and under the cover of collectivization teach the Ukrainians a bloody lesson. Had it not been for Stalinist hubris and the incorporation of the more nationalistically minded and less physically decimated Western Ukrainians after 1939, the Ukrainian nation might have never recovered from the Stalinist offensive against the main army of the Ukrainian national movement, the peasants.
James Mace, 1984: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal
James Mace, 1984: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal: https://books.google.com/books?id=f7vaF3T5a2IC (full text not available)
For the Ukrainians the famine must be understood as the most terrible part of a consistent policy carried out against them: the destruction of their cultural and spiritual elite which began with the trial of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine, the destruction of the official Ukrainian wing of the Communist Party, and the destruction of their social basis in the countryside. Against them the famine seems to have been designed as part of a campaign to destroy them as a political factor and as a social organism.
Mark Tauger, 2006: Holodomor was partially man-made, not intentional, and not genocidal
Mark Tauger, 2006: Holodomor was partially man-made, not intentional, and not genocidal: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668130600831282 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668130600831282
In my 1991 article I presented these data and showed, using comparisons with official figures, a weighted average yield calculation, and other calculations, that proved that the 1932 harvest was much smaller than the official published estimate of that year, and also smaller than the harvest of 1933. This conclusion seriously undermined previous claims, for example by Robert Conquest and the late James Mace, that the famine was man-made because the harvest was not exceptionally small and therefore did not create a shortage that would have caused the famine.
Stephen Wheatcroft, 2018: Holodomor was mostly man-made, not intentional, and not genocidal
Stephen Wheatcroft, 2018: Holodomor was mostly man-made, not intentional, and not genocidal: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/turn-away-from-economic-explanations-for-soviet-famines/78C193C97E6C5383C37763CADA970644 https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/S0960777318000358
We all agreed that Stalin s policy was brutal and ruthless and that its cover up was criminal, but we do not believe that it was done on purpose to kill people and cannot therefore be described as murder or genocide.
Davies and I have (2004) produced the most detailed account of the grain crisis in these years, showing the uncertainties in the data and the mistakes carried out by a generally ill-informed, and excessively ambitious, government. The state showed no signs of a conscious attempt to kill lots of Ukrainians and belated attempts that sought to provide relief when it eventually saw the tragedy unfolding were evident.
Discussions in the popular narrative of famine have changed over the years. During Soviet times there was a contrast between man-made famine and denial of famine . Man-made at this time largely meant as a result of policy. Then there was a contrast between man-made on purpose , and man-made by accident with charges of criminal neglect and cover up. This stage seemed to have ended in 2004 when Robert Conquest agreed that the famine was not man-made on purpose. But in the following ten years there has been a revival of the man-made on purpose side. This reflects both a reduced interest in understanding the economic history, and increased attempts by the Ukrainian government to classify the famine as a genocide . It is time to return to paying more attention to economic explanations.
Robert Davies, 2016: Holodomor was mostly man-made, not intentional, and not genocidal
Robert Davies, 2016: Holodomor was mostly man-made, not intentional, and not genocidal: https://books.google.com/books?id=4s1lCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14
In our own work we, like V.P. Kozlov, have found no evidence that the Soviet authorities undertook a programme of genocide against Ukraine. It is also certain that the statements by Ukranian politicans and publicists about the deaths from famine in Ukraine are greatly exagerrated. A prominent Ukranian historian, Stanislas Kul'chitskii, estimated deaths from famine in Ukraine at 3-3.5 million;5 and Ukrainian demograhic in Ukraine in the whole period 1926-39 (most of them during the famine) amounted to 3.5 million.6 Nevertheless, Ukrainian organisations continue, with some success, to urge Canadian schools to teach as a fact that excess deaths were 10 million during the 1932-33 famine.7 This does not mean that Ukraine did not suffer greatly during the famine. It is certainly the case that most of the famine deaths took place in Ukraine, and that the grain collection campaign was associated with the reversal of the previous policy of Ukranisation.8
Steven Rosenfielde, 2010: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal
Steven Rosenfielde, 2010: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal: https://books.google.com/books?id=KfP3twAACAAJ https://u1lib.org/book/1302178/83e2b5
There was a famine (widespread health-impairing food shortage) 1932 33 caused by two bad harvests in 1931 and 1932 attributable partly to collectivization and partly to weather (although Kondrashin and Penner contest the explanation), but it didn t cause the killings. Grain supplies were sufficient to sustain everyone if properly distributed. People died mostly of terror-starvation (excess grain exports, seizure of edibles from the starving, state refusal to provide emergency relief, bans on outmigration, and forced deportation to food-deficit locales), not poor harvests and routine administrative bungling.
Timothy Snyder, 2010: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal
Timothy Snyder, 2010: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal: https://books.google.com/books?id=maEfAQAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/1242771/eec13d
In the waning weeks of 1932, facing no external security threat and no challenge from within, with no conceivable justification except to prove the inevitability of his rule, Stalin chose to kill millions of people in Soviet Ukraine.
It was not food shortages but food distribution that killed millions in Soviet Ukraine, and it was Stalin who decided who was entitled to what.
Though collectivization was a disaster everywhere in the Soviet Union, the evidence of clearly premeditated mass murder on the scale of millions is most evident in Soviet Ukraine. Collectivization had involved the massive use of executions and deportations everywhere in the Soviet Union, and the peasants and nomads who made up the bulk of the Gulag s labor force hailed from all of the Soviet republics. Famine had struck parts of Soviet Russia as well as much of Soviet Ukraine in 1932. Nevertheless, the policy response to Ukraine was special, and lethal. Seven crucial policies were applied only, or mainly, in Soviet Ukraine in late 1932 or early 1933. Each of them may seem like an anodyne administrative measure, and each of them was certainly presented as such at the time, and yet each of them had to kill.
Raphael Lemkin, 1953: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal
Raphael Lemkin, 1953: Holodomor was man-made, intentional, and genocidal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lemkin Holodomor was man-made and genocidal: http://history.org.ua/LiberUA/RaphaelLemkin_1953/RaphaelLemkin_1953.pdf
What I want to speak about is perhaps the classic example of Soviet genocide, its longest and broadest experiment in Russification the destruction of the Ukrainian nation. This is, as I have said, only the logical successor of such Tsarist crimes as the drowning of 10,000 Crimean Tatars by order of Catherine the Great, the mass murders of Ivan the Terrible's SS troops the Oprichnina; the extermination of National Polish leaders and Ukrainian Catholics by Nicholas I; and the series of Jewish pogroms that have stained Russian history periodically.
Harvests
Davies and Wheatcroft's figures
Tauger 1991's figures
Causes: Non-Manmade
Davies and Wheatcroft reply to Ellman
Tauger 2001: both weather and collectivization played a substantial role in the Holodomor: Tauger lists 13 causes for the 1933 famines: extreme drought, a sudden midwinter warm spell, heavy rains late in the growing season, rust (plant disease), smut (plant disease), ergot (plant disease), pests, mass killing of draft forces (horses) without compensatory increases in tractors, peasant exile and reduced labor, peasant opposition to collectivization, soil exhaustion, weeds, and mice
Tauger 2001: both weather and collectivization played a substantial role in the Holodomor: Tauger lists 13 causes for the 1933 famines: extreme drought, a sudden midwinter warm spell, heavy rains late in the growing season, rust (plant disease), smut (plant disease), ergot (plant disease), pests, mass killing of draft forces (horses) without compensatory increases in tractors, peasant exile and reduced labor, peasant opposition to collectivization, soil exhaustion, weeds, and mice: https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/view/89 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/871934431961698334/tauger2001.pdf
Tauger 2001: famines occurred under the NEP, before collectivization
Tauger 2001: famines occurred under the NEP, before collectivization: https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/view/89 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/871934431961698334/tauger2001.pdf Serious droughts led to famines during the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1924 -- 1925 in European Russia and Ukraine, and in 1928-1929, which was most severe in Ukraine. In both cases, the regime acknowledged the crises and formed extraordinary agencies to manage relief.16 The 1928-1929 Ukrainian famine, which has not been recognized in the Western literature but is documented in Ukrainian sources, was a major cause of the "grain crisis" because it substantially reduced grain supplies for the urban population as well as for peasants in the drought regions. The grain crisis and famine of 1928-1929 were among the main factors that led Soviet leaders and officials to resort to the "extraordinary measures" to procure food from peasants in other regions, to import food from abroad, to ration food in towns and in rural famine districts, and ultimately to undertake the collectivization of agriculture.17 Even in 1930 many regions had unfavorable weather and crop failures: in parts of the North Caucasus, crop failures forced local authorities to appeal to central authorities for seed aid, which they received, and crop failures also reduced harvests in Kazakstan and the Middle Volga.18
Exports: The Ussr Reduced Grain Exports
the USSR curtailed exports, urban rations, and rural rations (Tauger 1991)
the USSR curtailed exports, urban rations, and rural rations (Tauger 1991): https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/C5FC508259E11A70BFBFA5AE5A2C4E9F/S0037677900000863a.pdf/1932_harvest_and_the_famine_of_1933.pdf http://sci-hub.se/10.2307/2500600 The low 1932 harvest meant that the regime did not have sufficient grain for urban and rural food supplies, seed, and exports. The authorities curtailed all of these, but ultimately rural food supplies had last priority. The harsh 1932-1933 procurements only displaced the famine from urban areas, which would have suffered a similar scale of mortality without the grain the procurements provided (though, as noted above, urban mortality rates also rose in 1933). **The severity and geographical extent of the famine, the sharp decline in exports in 1932-1933, seed requirements, and the chaos in the Soviet Union in these years, all lead to the conclusion that even a complete cessation of exports would not have been enough to prevent famine. This situation makes it difficult to accept the interpretation of the famine as the result of the 1932 grain procurements and as a conscious act of genocide. The harvest of 1932 essentially made a famine inevitable. Although the low 1932 harvest may have been a mitigating circumstance, the regime was still responsible for the deprivation and suffering of the Soviet population in the early 1930s.** The data presented here provide a more precise measure of the consequences of collectivization and forced industrialization than has previously been available; if anything, these data show that the effects of those policies were worse than has been assumed. They also, however, indicate that the famine was real, the result of a failure of economic policy, of the "revolution from above," rather than of a "successful" nationality policy against Ukrainians or other ethnic groups.
Tauger 2001: the USSR substantially curtailed exports -- 1932 exports were 34% of 1931, first half of 1933 exports were 4%
Tauger 2001: the USSR substantially curtailed exports -- 1932 exports were 34% of 1931, first half of 1933 exports were 4%: https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/view/89 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/871934431961698334/tauger2001.pdf
The amount of grain exported during the peak of the famine in the first half of 1933, however, approximately 220,000 tons, was small, less than 1 percent of the lowest harvest estimates, and the regime was using virtually all the rest of the available harvest to feed people. The actual amounts of grain needed and utilized for this purpose can only be approximated.
As can be seen from comparing these statistics with the data on procurements in tables 1 and 2, the total of supply and exports nearly exhausts the total grain available from procurements in these years. The Soviet government did have small reserves of grain, but continually drew these down to allocate food to the population.5 Since virtually the entire country experienced shortages of food, indicating that the procurement and distribution data are reasonably accurate, clearly the Soviet Union faced a severe shortage, and the most important cause of that shortage has to have been small harvests in 1931 and 1932.
Internationally, Soviet leaders faced a military threat in the Far East that had resulted from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, an extremely tense situation in Germany as the Nazi party rose to power, distrustful relations with Poland, and a serious balance of payments deficit that put the Soviet Union under intense pressure to export commodities and to curtail imports of producer goods, both desperately needed internally.
Tauger 2001: grain exports fell enormously
Tauger 2001: grain exports fell enormously: https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/view/89 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/871934431961698334/tauger2001.pdf XXX unformatted
During those same periods [July 1931 to June 1932] the regime drastically curtailed grain exports, from 4.7 million tons to 1.6 million tons.
Tauger 2001: the USSR saw substantially reduced (33% lower) total horsepower on farms, mostly from reduced horses and unfulfilled tractor production promises
Tauger 2001: the USSR saw substantially reduced (33% lower) total horsepower on farms, mostly from reduced horses and unfulfilled tractor production promises: https://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/view/89 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/871934431961698334/tauger2001.pdf
Draft forces declined drastically directly or indirectly as a result of collectivization. In response to collectivization and the socialization of their property in the kolkhozy, many peasants sold or slaughtered their livestock, for a variety of reasons: as a protest against collectivization; because they did not want to surrender their animals to the new collective farms without compensation; because of local officials' unrealistic promises about mechanizadon.92 During the initial campaign of 1930, these actions most affected animals used for consumption, especially cattle and pigs. Afterward, when most peasants had already been collectivized and subjected to the procurement demands of 1931, the number of draft animals, especially horses, declined rapidly. Animals were the immediate victims of shortages in 1930-1933 since starving peasants had no choice but to feed themselves first from the dwindling reserves, and because peasants frequently expressed their resentment of collectivization by neglect and abusive treatment of socialized livestock.93
Tauger 2001: on the decline of draft forces in the USSR from 1930-35
Tauger 2001: on the effects of dekulakization on Soviet harvests
Tauger 2001: USSR leaders were ignorant of the extremely low famine and blamed low statistics on mismanagement and peasant resistance
Tauger 2001: USSR leaders, including the Politburo and Stalin, were ignorant of the extremely low famine and blamed low statistics on mismanagement and peasant resistance
Tauger 2001: USSR leaders, including the Politburo and Stalin, were ignorant of the extremely low famine and blamed low statistics on mismanagement and peasant resistance: http://carlbeckpapers.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/cbp/article/view/89 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/853097516220153866/tauger2001.pdf
Tauger 2001: the Holodomor (Soviet famine, 1932-33) is comparable to the Gorta Mor (Irish famine, 1845-1848)
Grain Stocks: Excessively Large, but Not Enormous
the USSR was unable to maintain large grain stocks
the USSR was unable to maintain large grain stocks: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/slavic-review/article/stalin-grain-stocks-and-the-famine-of-19321933/3359EB3EEF22890B969720BEE5BDF9A7 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/2501740
All planners' stocks-the two secret grain reserves, Nepfond and Mobfond or Gosfond, together with "transitional stocks" held by grain organizations-amounted on 1 July 1933 to less than 2 million tons (1.997 million tons, according to the highest official figure
On 1 July 1933 the total amount of grain set aside in reserve grain stocks (fondy) amounted not to 4.53 million tons as Conquest claimed but to only 1.141 million.
These findings do not, of course, free Stalin from responsibility for the famine. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to assess the extent to which it would have been possible for Stalin to use part of the grain stocks available in spring 1933 to feed starving peasants. The state was a monopoly supplier of grain to urban areas and the army; if the reserves of this monopoly supply system-which amounted to four-six weeks' supply-were to have been drained, mass starvation, epidemics and unrest in the towns could have resulted. Nevertheless, it seems certain that, if Stalin had risked lower levels of these reserves in spring and summer 1933, hundreds of thousands-perhaps millions-of lives could have been saved. In the slightly longer term, if he had been open about the famine, some international help would certainly have alleviated the disaster. And if he had been more far-sighted, the agricultural crisis of 1932-1933 could have been mitigated and perhaps even avoided altogether. But Stalin was not hoarding immense grain reserves in these years. On the contrary, he had failed to reach the levels which he had been imperatively demanding since 1929.
Ethnicities Affected: Probably Not Intentionally Biased Towards Ukrainian Death
Ukraine's mortality rate in 1933 was 189% higher than in 32, Russia's 51.7%, Byelorussia's 23.6%, and the USSR as a whole 83.9%
Ukraine's mortality rate in 1933 was 189% higher than in 32, Russia's 51.7%, Byelorussia's 23.6%, and the USSR as a whole 83.9%: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/152086.pdf
Stanislav Kulchytsky and Hennadiy Yefimenko state that the statistical distribution of famine's victims among the ethnicities closely reflects the ethnic distribution of the rural population of Ukraine. The more-rural Moldavian, Polish, German, and Bulgarian populations of Ukraine suffered in the same proportion as the rural Ukrainian population, while the more-urban Russians and Jews survived the famine more successfully
Stanislav Kulchytsky and Hennadiy Yefimenko state that the statistical distribution of famine's victims among the ethnicities closely reflects the ethnic distribution of the rural population of Ukraine. The more-rural Moldavian, Polish, German, and Bulgarian populations of Ukraine suffered in the same proportion as the rural Ukrainian population, while the more-urban Russians and Jews survived the famine more successfully: http://web.archive.org/web/20191031134756/http://resource.history.org.ua/cgi-bin/eiu/history.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=ELIB&P21DBN=ELIB&Image_file_name=book/0002027.pdf
1933 . : , ' , , . , . , (1850,3 . ). . , , . , . . . . . , . , . , , .
1927 Census: ethnicities within the Ukraine SSR
my calculation of the relative proportions of fatalities
my calculation of the relative proportions of fatalities:
Historical Context: Mutual Defense Treaty
the USSR had signed a mutual defense treaty with France; instead, in 1938, France supported the Munich agreement
between April and August 1939, the USSR attempted to establish tripartite mutual defense treaty with Britain and France. Suspicion of socialism and belief that war could be avoided prevented the West from taking the talks seriously; in addition, Poland refused to allow Soviet troops through its territory. After a long failure of the talks, the USSR pursued a non-aggresion treaty with Germany
between April and August 1939, the USSR attempted to establish tripartite mutual defense treaty with Britain and France. Suspicion of socialism and belief that war could be avoided prevented the West from taking the talks seriously; in addition, Poland refused to allow Soviet troops through its territory. After a long failure of the talks, the USSR pursued a non-aggresion treaty with Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Polish_military_alliance#Franco-British_failed_alliance_with_Moscow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668139308412091 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713663077
Terms and Abbreviations: Punishments
summary: five main categories: execution, labor camp, labor colony, prison, special settler
summary: five main categories: execution, labor camp, labor colony, prison, special settler
SpP [ ] = special settlement, administrative category for transferred populations; see also special settlement [ (spetsposele niye), short for (spetsial'nyy posele niye)]; special resettlement [ (spetsperesele niye), short for (spetsial'nyy peresele niye)]; exiled settler [ (ssyl'noposelenets) or (ssyl'noye poselenets)]; administrative deportation [ ] category 1 kulak: individually investigation, deported to labor camps category 2 kulak: mass operation (no individual investigation), deported to distant special settlements (often Urals) category 3 kulak: mass operation (no individual investigation), deported to closer special settlements Terms and Abbreviations: Organizations
VChK [ ] = All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) [ ( )], also known as Cheka [ a]: intelligence services and secret police from 1917-1922: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheka Overall Death Toll
Getty 1993: 2.3 million people died from Stalinist repression
Getty 1993: 2.3 million people died from Stalinist repression: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/98/4/1017/126966 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/ahr/98.4.1017 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/855104448186548264/getty1993.pdf Turning to executions and custodial deaths in the entire Stalin period, we know that, between 1934 and 1953, 1,053,829 persons died in the camps of the GULAG. We have data to the effect that some 86,582 people perished in prisons between 1939 and 1951.31 (We do not yet know exactly how many died in labor colonies.) We also know that, between 1930 and 1952-1953, 786,098 "counterrevolutionaries" were executed (or, according to another source, more than 775,866 persons "on cases of the police" and for "political crimes").32 Finally, we know that, from 1932 through 1940, 389,521 peasants died in places of "kulak" resettlement.33 Adding these figures together would produce a total of a little more than 2.3 million, but this can in no way be taken as an exact number. First of all, there is a possible overlap between the numbers given for GULAG camp deaths and "political" executions as well as between the latter and other victims of the 1937-1938 mass purges and perhaps also other categories falling under police jurisdiction. Double-counting would deflate the 2.3 million figure. On the other hand, the 2.3 million does not include several suspected categories of death in custody. It does not include, for example, deaths among deportees during and after the war as well as among categories of exiles other than "kulaks."34 Still, we have some reason to believe that the new numbers for GULAG and prison deaths, executions as well as deaths in peasant exile, are likely to bring us within a much narrower range of error than the estimates proposed by the majority of authors who have written on the subject.
Wheatcroft 2009: estimates of crude mortality rate by punishment from 1890 to 1953
Background on Soviet Penal System
Getty 1993
Getty 1993: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/98/4/1017/126966 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/ahr/98.4.1017 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/855104448186548264/getty1993.pdf The penal system administered by the NKVD (Peoples' Commissariat of Internal Affairs) in the 1930s had several components: prisons, labor camps, and labor colonies, as well as "special settlements" and various types of non-custodial supervision. Generally speaking, the first stop for an arrested person was a prison, where an investigation and interrogation led to conviction or, more rarely, release.7 After sentencing, most victims were sent to one of the labor camps or colonies to serve their terms.
On Soviet Legalism: Why Documentation Is Easily Available for the Soviet Union's Killings
Wheatcroft 1996: Stalin demanded sham trials and documentation; Hitler demanded suppression of evidence
Wheatcroft 2009: legalism: with exception of the scarce true mass operations, most trials and executions were documented for each individual
On Distinguishing Incarceration From Manslaughter From Purposive Killings
Wheatcroft 1996: we can divide repression into four types: short-term removal of civil liberties (short incarceration), long-term removal of civil liberties (long incarceration), permanent removal of civil liberties by death from high-mortality situation (manslaughter), permanent removal of civil liberties by intentional killing (murder)
Wheatcroft 1996: we can divide repression into four types: short-term removal of civil liberties (short incarceration), long-term removal of civil liberties (long incarceration), permanent removal of civil liberties by death from high-mortality situation (manslaughter), permanent removal of civil liberties by intentional killing (murder): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf
The use of the word repression alone would imply that the events in the different countries at different times were uniform and in some aggregate sense comparable. I think that this would be mistaken. For a more detailed analysis we need to distinguish between different degrees of repression at different times. We could begin with the temporary removal of civil liberties, pass through longer-term removal of civil liberties, including forced labour, and end with permanent removal of civil liberties by prematurely induced death. The latter could result from conscious action killing, or from less conscious action--placing the victims in a situation where they are more likely to starve, or die of diseases or exhaustion, or even of harsh disciplinary action. This would be equivalent to thedistinction between murder and manslaughter, between purposive killing and death resulting from criminal neglect or irresponsibility.
Wheatcroft 1996: the lines between these categories are vague
Wheatcroft 1996: the lines between these categories are vague: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf
This distinction between these categories of induced premature mortality is conventionally given great significance, although from the point of view of the victim the distinction may not appear all that great. In harsh disciplinary regimes the distinction would be even less clear. Harsh disciplinary action could result in deprivation of food, increased exhaustion, and reduced shelter to the point of starvation. It could also result in summary execution of prisoners for stepping out of line or 'straggling'. The environment in which these different forms of repression took place is also important. The mortality consequences of similar degrees of repression will be very different in different social environments, i.e. in times of war and in times of famine, and in societies which suffered a normally higher level of mortality.
Executions
Wheatcroft 2013: between 1921 and 1953, a minimum of 796495 and maximum of 823456 people were sentenced to death by Soviet security service; these numbers include both "politicals", criminals, and "category 1" kulaks (a small minority)
Wheatcroft 2013: between 1921 and 1953, a minimum of 796495 and maximum of 823456 people were sentenced to death by Soviet security service; these numbers include both "politicals", criminals, and "category 1" kulaks (a small minority): https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655663.001.0001/acprof-9780199655663-chapter-16 https://u1lib.org/book/5235697/f206ee https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854094075359526942/harris2013.pdf XXXXX adjusting for civilian death rates would yield a figure 0.998x of that listed (ie, virtually identical)
^ Wheatcroft 2013: tables for above
^ Wheatcroft 2013: the security statistics are high-quality indicators
^ Wheatcroft 2013: the security statistics are high-quality indicators: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655663.001.0001/acprof-9780199655663-chapter-16 https://u1lib.org/book/5235697/f206ee https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854094075359526942/harris2013.pdf [T]he archives of the security service and the party leadership are still largely impenetrable to independent scholars and there remains a degree of uncertainty over many aspects of the annual summary data on arrests and sentences that was leaked in 1992 and which is known as the Pavlov data[.] [....] A very large set of detailed security service records has been published (and posted for a while on the FSB website) by the special historian O. B. Mozokhin, who was given access to these materials and permission to publish them. I will refer to these as the Mozokhin data. (See below and in Tables 15.1 and 15.2.) [....] [T]here was a surprisingly large degree of continuity in the statistical services of the security system, and that these operational series provide the most reliable overall indicators of the scale and nature of Soviet repression prior to, during, and after the Great Terror.
^ Wheatcroft 2013: why the original documentation is kept secret
^ Wheatcroft 2013: why the original documentation is kept secret: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655663.001.0001/acprof-9780199655663-chapter-16 https://u1lib.org/book/5235697/f206ee https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854094075359526942/harris2013.pdf The original materials from which Pavlov produced his survey and Pavlov s notes on his compilations are held in the Security Archives (TsA FSB RF). Th e copy of the materials received by Malenkov and Khrushchev are presumably held in their personal fi les, which are still held in the Presidential Archive (AP RF). Both the archives of the Security service and the party leadership remain beyond the reach of unauthorized historians. 11 But a copy of the four summary tables prepared by Pavlov eventually found their way into the state archives (GARF) where they became available for normal historians to investigate. 12 Th is allowed historians who did not have direct access to closed archives to cite these materials directly with an archival reference. Th is location gave the source a greater degree of respectability, and added to some extent to the authority of these fi gures. But many scholars remained worried about not having direct access to these materials, in the archive where they belonged, and not being able to investigate the rest of the materials in these archives that would show how these materials were put together, and what the base materials were. 13
Forced Labor (Gulags; VChK-GPU-OGPU-NKVD-MVD)
Wheatcroft 1996: between 1932 and 1946, a minimum of 1.05 million (recorded by Soviet security services) and maximum of 1.45 million (also including uncaptured runaways and disappearances in transit) people died in Soviet labor camps
Wheatcroft 1996: between 1932 and 1946, a minimum of 1.05 million (recorded by Soviet security services) and maximum of 1.45 million (also including uncaptured runaways and disappearances in transit) people died in Soviet labor camps: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf XXXXX after adjusting for civilian death rates: minimum 749 thousand, maximum 1297 thousand
^ Wheatcroft 1996: table for above plus explanation of limitations (above estimate is underestimate)
^ Wheatcroft 1996: table for above plus explanation of limitations (above estimate is underestimate): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf The available data on annual population movement in the labour camps are given in Table 6. The number recorded on 1 January each year is given in column one; subsequent columns present movements (deaths, liberations, arrivals, net runaways, disappearance in transit, etc.) calculated as a rate per thousand of the camp population. A maximum camp death rate is calculated which includes recorded deaths, uncaptured runaways and disappearances in transit. Not all of these categories would cover deaths, but many would. The data are fairly systematically presented for the period after 1934, when the camps were placed under the control of NKVD, but before 1934 during the OGPU period, when the level of mortality and losses through runaways was much higher, the data are far less complete. Basic data for minimum death rates are also available for 1932 and 1933.
^ Wheatcroft 1996: between 1933 and 1940, the death rate among forced labor camp residents was between 3.73x and 17.14x higher than civilians of the same age group
Getty 1993: 1.1 million died in Stalin-era labor camps and prisons
Getty 1993: 1.1 million died in Stalin-era labor camps and prisons: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/98/4/1017/126966 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/ahr/98.4.1017 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/855104448186548264/getty1993.pdf Turning to executions and custodial deaths in the entire Stalin period, we know that, between 1934 and 1953, 1,053,829 persons died in the camps of the GULAG. We have data to the effect that some 86,582 people perished in prisons between 1939 and 1951.31 (We do not yet know exactly how many died in labor colonies.)
^ Alexopolous 2013: gulag death rate may be underestimates because of the practice of releasing prisoners near death
^ Alexopolous 2013: gulag death rate may be underestimates because of the practice of releasing prisoners near death: https://www.hoover.org/news/gulags-veiled-mortality-golfo-alexopoulos
The practice of releasing prisoners on the verge of death, which constituted an explicit policy of the gulag, persisted for decades. For example, in 1935, the procurator of Dmitlag asked the USSR Procuracy whether the cases of prisoners who were being released early due to severe, incurable or psychological illness could be expedited. He complained that sometimes it took months for the cases of these prisoners to be processed, by which time the prisoners had often died, hurting the camp s mortality rate.
^ Alexopolous 2017: gulag death rate may be underestimates because of the officials lying and the practice of releasing prisoners near death
^ Alexopolous 2017: gulag death rate may be underestimates because of the officials lying and the practice of releasing prisoners near death: https://u1lib.org/book/3309246/a2a40f https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/855219920274587708/alexopolous2017.pdf
Declassified Gulag archives reveal lower than expected mortality. [....] Scholars have been justifiably cautious when using this data. Internal Gulag records are often inconsistent. Both the medical-sanitation department and the accounting and distribution department kept records on inmate deaths, and their figures do not coincide. Deaths during transport did not get included in the official record.97 [97. Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag, 321 327.] Thus an accurate accounting of mortality in Stalin s Gulag is enormously difficult to produce. The mortality rate most used in offi cial documents captured only deaths that occurred in Gulag medical facilities. In February 1933, Gulag chief Berman and Gulag medical-sanitation department chief Ginzburg complained that camp medical-sanitation departments were failing to record deaths that did not take place in their facilities.99 By the mid-1930s, deaths both in- and outside camp clinics and hospitals were reported. For 1935, Bamlag reported 5954 deaths in health care facilities and 998 outside them, for a total of 6952, or roughly 4 percent of its average prisoner population for the year.100
^ Healey 2018 review of Alexopolous 2017: Alexopolous arrives at a "conservative" death toll of 6 million (of 18 million inmates) by counting all released prisoners except the most healthy as soon-to-die
^ Healey 2018 review of Alexopolous 2017: Alexopolous arrives at a "conservative" death toll of 6 million (of 18 million inmates) by counting all released prisoners except the most healthy as soon-to-die: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/123/3/1049/5025385 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/ahr/123.3.1049
Finally and most provocatively, Alexopoulos proposes a conservative death toll for the Gulag of at least 6 million given the archival record on [prisoners ] physical labor capability (243). Methodologically, this claim is in ferred from this one indicator, and Alexopoulos interprets physical labor capability assuming the very worst for all prisoners but those classed as healthiest. Thus, she extends the camps mortality rate to encompass those whose lives were shortened by Gulag toil (244), a laudable moral choice, but one with obvious methodological difficulties. How do we decide which deaths after release to include? If it were possible to obtain it, substantiation from local and regional sources for such a count would be needed. The central records can only hint at the phenomenon.
^ Petrov 2000: GULAG (Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei ), 1918-1960
Getty 1993: between 1934 and 1940, the vast majority of GULAG residents were 19-40
Forced Labor: Most Were Not Criminals
Getty 1993: a minority of GULAG forced laborers were criminals: just 20.6% in 1934, 27.8% in 1936, and 17.3% in 1940 were sentenced for a crime, and just 4.7% in 1934, 5.5% in 1936, and 5.2% in 1940 for a "crime against persons"
Getty 1993: a minority of GULAG forced laborers were criminals: just 20.6% in 1934, 27.8% in 1936, and 17.3% in 1940 were sentenced for a crime, and just 4.7% in 1934, 5.5% in 1936, and 5.2% in 1940 for a "crime against persons" https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/98/4/1017/126966 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/ahr/98.4.1017 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/855104448186548264/getty1993.pdf It is commonly believed that most of the prisoners of the "Gulag Archipelago" had been arrested and sentenced for political offenses falling under one of the headings of "counterrevolutionary offenses" (Article 58 in the criminal code). It is also common wisdom that many people arrested for other reasons were accused of political crimes for propaganda value. The available evidence does not bear out this view, but it does suggest considerable ambiguity in definitions of "political crimes." Table 7 shows the breakdown of labor camp inmates for selected years, according to the offense for which they were sentenced. Although the presence of alleged counterrevolutionaries is impressive, it turns out that ostensibly non-political detainees heavily outnumbered "politicals."
Dekulakization
Wheatcroft 1996: between 1932 and 1940, a minimum of 402 thousand (recorded by Soviet security services) and maximum of 818 thousand (also including uncaptured runaways) people died in Soviet 'special settlements' (mostly resettlement sites for dekulakization)
Wheatcroft 1996: between 1932 and 1940, a minimum of 402 thousand (recorded by Soviet security services) and maximum of 818 thousand (also including uncaptured runaways) people died in Soviet 'special settlements' (mostly resettlement sites for dekulakization): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf XXXXX after adjusting for civilian death rates: minimum 210 thousand, maximum 576 thousand
^ Wheatcroft 1996: table for above plus explanation of limitations (above estimate is underestimate)
^ Wheatcroft 1996: table for above plus explanation of limitations (above estimate is underestimate): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf The available data on the exiled kulaks are given in Table 7. Fairly comprehensive data sets are available from 1932 covering the famine period but, as will be described below, mortality from famine amongst the exiles was probably at its most severe in 1931 and for this year only partial data are available.
^ Wheatcroft 1996: between 1931 and 1940, the death rate among resettled kulaks was between 0.89x and 16.67x higher than the civilians death rate of all age groups
Repressed Nationalities
Wheatcroft 1996: explanation of why no firm data for this category exists
Wheatcroft 1996: explanation of why no firm data for this category exists: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf Later this category of special exiles was extended to cover the so-called 'repressed nationalities'. The first group amongst these were probably the Koreans who were forceably removed from the Russian Far East in 1937.45 A few years later the category was greatly increased to include deportations and executions associated with the occupation of the Baltic States and Eastern Poland between 1939 and 1941. At the beginning of the war, on 28 August 1941, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ordered the ethnic Germans from the Volga area to be be forceably exiled to the Novosibirsk, Omsk and Altai regions and to Kazakhstan.46 Later during the war other nationalities were deported from newly liberated areas; these included the Kalmyks (26 359 families of 93 139 persons in October 1943), the Karachai (14 774 families of 69 938 persons in November 1943), the Chechen and Ingush (450 000 persons in February 1944) and the Tartars from Crimea. The main nationalities still held in the places of special exile in October 1946 are listed in Table 8. Unfortunately, so far data have not been made available to allow mortality rates amongst these later, primarily ethnic, spetspereselentsy to be calculated.
^ an additional 1 million were resettled between 1946 and 1952 (Ellman 2002, p. 1159) total 3.5 million
^ an additional 1 million were resettled between 1946 and 1952 (Ellman 2002, p. 1159) total 3.5 million https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0966813022000017177 xxxx
Mass Operation: Katyn and Related Operations
(in Wheatcroft 1996: 21,857 Poles were executed
(in Wheatcroft 1996: 21,857 Poles were executed: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf
In March 1959 the KGB chief A. Shelepin wrote to Khrushchev requesting permission to dispose of the files concerning the 21,857 Poles who were shot as a result of this Politburo resolution. [...] Shelepin indicates that of the 21,857 Poles executed 4,421 were executed near Katyn Forest in Smolensk oblast', 3,820 in Starobelsk in Kharkhov oblast', 6,311 in Ostashkov in Kalinin oblast' and 7,305 elsewhere. Since the Germans claim to have discovered 10,000 bodies in Katyn, it remains unclear who the other 5,500 victims in Katyn were.
Beria 1940: March letter to Stalin: asks "to order the NKVD of the USSR" to provide "the highest penalty" (death) in the matters of 14,700 "prisoners of war, former Polish officers, officials, landowners, policemen" etc. and in the matters of 11,000 "members of various counter-revolutionary espionage and subversive organizations"; signed the letter in approval: Joseph Stalin, Klement Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan; writtein in the margin: "Kalinin, yes" and "Kaganovich, yes"
Beria 1940: March letter to Stalin: asks "to order the NKVD of the USSR" to provide "the highest penalty" (death) in the matters of 14,700 "prisoners of war, former Polish officers, officials, landowners, policemen" etc. and in the matters of 11,000 "members of various counter-revolutionary espionage and subversive organizations"; signed the letter in approval: Joseph Stalin, Klement Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan; writtein in the margin: "Kalinin, yes" and "Kaganovich, yes": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katyn_-_decision_of_massacre_p1.jpg https://rusarchives.ru/publication/katyn/spisok.shtml https://archive.is/Aldo https://archive.is/D8vdd https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/895394968439500800/beria1940.pdf source: RGANI/TsKhSD/ , Fond 89, Opis 14, Reel 1.993, Files #1-20: https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt767nf11z/dsc/#c02-2.14
Shelepin 1959: March 3rd handwritten letter to Khrushchev
Mass Operations: Individual Investigations vs Mass Actions
Wheatcroft 2013: mass operations that did not use individual investigations were not included in the security statistics; Katyn and category 2 and 3 kulaks fall into this category
Wheatcroft 2013: mass operations that did not use individual investigations were not included in the security statistics; Katyn and category 2 and 3 kulaks fall into this category: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199655663.001.0001/acprof-9780199655663-chapter-16 https://u1lib.org/book/5235697/f206ee https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854094075359526942/harris2013.pdf
Mass operations that were undertaken without the involvement of the investigative agencies were naturally not be included in these records. This includes most of the dekulakization operations in category 2 and 3 carried out in 1930 1. It was only the more serious category 1 kulaks who were to be tried individually in an extrajudicial manner and sentenced. These unfortunate beings were the only kulaks to be included in these records of the investigative organs. Similarly most of the exiles of ethnic groups from certain areas were to be performed without the use of the investigative organs, as were the Katyn executions. It should be noted, however, that the mass arrests and executions of the Anti-Soviet Element campaign 00447, and the ethnic campaigns of 1937 8 were all supposed to be carried out with the use of individual investigations from the investigative agencies, and in that sense they were not mass operations, and would be included in these records.
Wheatcroft 2009: mass operations that did not use individual investigations were not included in the security statistics; Katyn and category 2 and 3 kulaks fall into this category
Wheatcroft 2009: mass operations that did not use individual investigations were not included in the security statistics; Katyn and category 2 and 3 kulaks fall into this category: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014498308000259 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.eeh.2008.06.002 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858949796580163584/wheatcroft2009.pdf "The resulting Pavlov figures have often been cited as if they were some overall summary of all repressive activities of the Security forces, rather than as the operational accounting data of the investigative organs. The claims that these data are clearly false because they fail to include all dekulakised kulaks, or the Katyn killings are invalid. Category 2 and 3 kulaks in 1930 and 1931 were ordered to be exiled without referring their cases to the investigative organs. And the Polish officers and intellectuals in 1940 were similarly processed and shot on the basis of the documents used for their arrest, without further investigations. [....] The only Security force data that we have are for cases passing through the investigative organs. We do not have any data for extrajudicial executions carried out without the involvement of the investigative agencies. These were mass operations in a specific sense in which sentences were imposed after arrest without further investigation. These were relatively rare cases during peacetime, but more regular in martial law circumstances, and in newly occupied areas. The Katyn massacre of 25,000 Polish officers and members of the intelligentsia in 1940 belongs to this category."
Comparison Data: Overall Mortality: Biraben
Biraben 1958
Biraben 1976
Comparison Data: Overall Mortality: Adk
Andreev Darskiy Kharkova 1993: Population of the Soviet Union 1922-1991 [ (Naseleniye Sovetskogo Soyuza) 1922-1991]
Andreev Darskiy Kharkova 1993: Population of the Soviet Union 1922-1991 [ (Naseleniye Sovetskogo Soyuza) 1922-1991] http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/naselenie/naselenie_1922-1991.html https://u1lib.org/book/2533991/4bebef https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/895007780598063104/andreev1993.pdf for births and deaths 1920-1958 see Annex, Appendix I, " ": for age ranges for individual years see Annex, Appendix III, " "
^ identical table as Appendix I appears in (ADK) 1990: 1920 1959 [NO RUSSIAN COPY FOUND]; Andreev Darskiy Kharkov 1990, French translation: "l'Histoire de la Population de l'URSS 1920-1959"
^ identical table as Appendix I appears in (ADK) 1990: 1920 1959 [NO RUSSIAN COPY FOUND]; Andreev Darskiy Kharkov 1990, French translation: "l'Histoire de la Population de l'URSS 1920-1959" https://www.jstor.org/stable/44386043 https://www.persee.fr/doc/adh_0066-2062_1992_num_1992_1_1816 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/894285495683665930/andreev1990french.pdf for population, see "Annexe 1. Estimation de la population de l'URSS et des composantes de son changement (1920-1941 et 1946-1958*) en milliers d'habitants":
Todo
Wheatcroft 1990
Wheatcroft 1999
Wheatcroft 2000
Censorship: Opinion Polling
genuine opinion polling in the USSR effectively died (except under Kruschev and Gorbachev)
Post-Ussr Polling: Eastern Bloc Respondents Have Nostalgia for Ussr
USSR: older people are more likely to regret the collapse
USSR: older people are more regret to support the collapse
Post-Ussr Polling: Eastern Bloc Respondents Don't Have Nostalgia for Central Planning
2019: people in most Eastern bloc countries net support the shift to market economies and multiparty systems
2009
support for the shift to market economies and multiparty systems correlates with support for democratic values
support for the shift to market economies and multiparty systems correlates with support for democratic values: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/15/european-public-opinion-three-decades-after-the-fall-of-communism/
^ other polls
^ polls to grab
Transitional Elections: Voters
summary: it's all about wording!
summary: it's all about wording!
March 1991 USSR referendum: 78% in favor: Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics **as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics** in which **the rights and freedom of an individual of any ethnicity will be fully guaranteed**?
March 1991 USSR referendum: 78% in favor: Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics **as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics** in which **the rights and freedom of an individual of any ethnicity will be fully guaranteed**? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum
December 1991: 92% in favor: "Do you support the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine [included as a preamble]?"
December 1991: 92% in favor: "Do you support the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine [included as a preamble]?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum
December 1991 Uzbek referendum: 98% in favor
todo
Post-Ussr Elections: Russian Voters Did Not Elect Communists
1991 presidential (strong media bias *against* Yeltsin): 58.6% Yeltsin
1991 presidential (strong media bias *against* Yeltsin): 58.6% Yeltsin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Russian_presidential_election
1996 presidential (strong media bias *towards* Yeltsin): 35.8% Yeltsin
1996 presidential (strong media bias *towards* Yeltsin): 35.8% Yeltsin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Russian_presidential_election
Not One Crime Quote
Grover Furr says he is "yet to find one crime that Stalin committed"
Grover Furr says he is "yet to find one crime that Stalin committed": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6GnAoAUapY
Critical Reviews by Marxists: Elich,
journal name: "Science & Society A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis"
journal name: "Science & Society A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis" https://guilfordjournals.com/loi/siso
Elich 2014: on "Khrushchev lied" and the Great Purge: Rudzutak example
Elich 2014: on "Khrushchev lied" and the Great Purge: Rudzutak example: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/pdf/10.1521/siso.2014.78.3.390 https://sci-hub.se/10.1521/siso.2014.78.3.390
In his speech, Khrushchev mentioned the case of veteran Bolshevik and Central Committee member Jan Rudzutak, who completely retracted in court the confession forced from him. [....] Furr points out that Rudzutak confessed, but it is problematic to convict someone of a serious crime based upon his own confession. However, multiple, independent accusations by different defendants comprise strong evidence in any judicial system (56). True enough, but not when every one of those accusations has been extracted through torture and the defendants are told what to say in order to bring a halt to their suffering.
There is no evidence of Rudzutak s innocence, Furr argues, because the Khrushchev-era Pospelov rehabilitation report [....] did not disprove the charges made against Rudzutak[.]
If exculpatory evidence existed, why did they not cite it? (57). This rather misses the point of a report and a speech. Both would extend to unwieldy length were they to address every detail. Furr also fails to recognize the impossibility of proving a negative. How can one confirm that the outlandish charges made against Rudzutak were false? Can one prove that an individual did not commit sabotage, for example? It is more meaningful to note the total lack of evidence in support of the charges.
Elich 2014: on "Khrushchev lied" and the Great Purge: Yezhov example
Elich 2014: on "Khrushchev lied" and the Great Purge: Yezhov example: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/pdf/10.1521/siso.2014.78.3.390 https://sci-hub.se/10.1521/siso.2014.78.3.390
Khrushchev charged that Yezhov could not have arrested and shot so many prominent party officials without Stalin s decision. Furr confirms that Yezhov had many innocent people tortured and killed, but says that Stalin blamed Yezhov and quotes him as describing Yezhov as a scoundrel who ruined our best cadres (304). After the arrest of Yezhov for his excesses, the total number of arrests and executions dropped sharply. Although the scale paled in comparison to 1937 38, there were still nearly 169,000 individuals arrested in 1939 40. This hardly constituted an end to repression.
It is too much to suppose that Stalin could not have seen anything amiss until the end of 1938, had he not set the repression in motion and looked favorably upon its progression. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to overlook the fact that the majority of his comrades in the Central Committee were being arrested and killed, with each accusation more improbable than the last. Nor could he have overlooked more than 1.5 million arrests and nearly 700,000 executions in the period 1937 38. The arrest of Yezhov had more to do with a policy change and a shifting of blame, than with a sluggish dawning of recognition.
^ Elich is no right-winger
^ Elich is no right-winger: https://archive.vn/mkggM
Critical Reviews by Marxists: Meyer, PhD Historian
Meyer 2018: expulsion of ethnic minorities
Meyer 2018: expulsion of ethnic minorities: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/pdf/10.1521/siso.2018.82.4.576 https://sci-hub.se/10.1521/siso.2018.82.4.576
Furr defends the Soviet state s expulsion of the Volga Germans, Tartars, Chechens, and other ethnic minorities from their homelands because of collaboration with the Nazis. However, these minority people were exiled before the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Furr provides no evidence that these peoples were somehow in communication with the Nazis, plotting ways to undermine the defenses of the Soviet Union.
^ Meyer is no right-winger
^ Meyer is no right-winger: http://archive.is/wip/yqqA3
Only Positive Academic-Ish Reception: Another Stalinist
Holmstrom 2012
Reddit Posts (Yes, I Know) Discussing Specific Failures in Two of Furr's Articles
discussing Furr's "Moscow Trials"
discussing Furr's "Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform"
discussing Furr's claims about the Great Purge
"You Can't Name Even ONE Crime of Stalin"
owned with facts and logic
Growth
east germany grew as quickly as west germany did (p.53)
Growth: Reparations
reparations were extremely expensive
reparations were extremely expensive: http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-5098.html The reorientation and restructuring of the East German economy would have been difficult in any case. The substantial reparations costs that the Soviet Union imposed on its occupation zone, and later on East Germany, made the process even more difficult. Payments continued into the early 1950s, ending only with the death of Stalin. According to Western estimates, these payments amounted to about 25 percent of total East German production through 1953.
Nostalgia
East Germany
Sexuality
women in East Germany reported substantially higher sexual satisfaction than West Germany
women in East Germany reported substantially higher sexual satisfaction than West Germany: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/women-better-sex-under-socialism-review https://u1lib.org/book/3644970/edaf3f https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/_3JPDwAAQBAJ
In 1988, Kurt Starke and Ulrich Clement conducted the first comparative study of the self-reported sexual experiences of East and West German female students. They found that the East German women said they enjoyed sex more and reported a higher rate of orgasm than their Western counterparts. In 1990, another study comparing the sexual attitudes of youth in the two Germanys found that GDR men s and women s preferences were more in sync with each other than those of young men and women in the West. For example, one survey found that 73 percent of East German women and 74 percent of East German men wanted to get married. In contrast, 71 percent of women in the West desired marriage, but only 57 percent of Western men did, a fourteen-point difference. A different survey about sexual experiences uncovered much higher levels of self-reported sensual enjoyment among East German women. When asked if their last tryst had left them feeling satisfied, 75 percent of GDR women and 74 percent of GDR men said yes, compared to 84 percent of FRG men and a mere 46 percent of FRG women. Finally, respondents were asked to report whether they felt happy after sex. Among the East German women 82 percent agreed, whereas among West German women only 52 percent reported feeling happy. To reverse that statistic, only 18 percent of GDR females were not happy after sex, compared to almost half of the surveyed females in the FRG.
Growth
bolivia has grown more quickly (3.2%/year) than the Latin American average (1.3%)
Nationalization
Bolivia diversified under Morales
Bolivia diversified under Morales: http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/new-report-reviews-changes-in-bolivia-s-economy-under-evo-morales-s-presidency http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191113010826/http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf In the first eight years of the Morales administration, national government revenue from hydrocarbons increased nearly sevenfold from $731 million to $4.95 billion.8 This increase was not primarily the result of rising prices of hydrocarbons (75 percent of Bolivia s exports of hydrocarbons were natural gas). Most of the increased revenue was a result of the nationalization and associated policy changes, including a doubling of production by 2013. 9
state assets have quintupled since 2010
Financial System
savings in Bolivia are up
savings in Bolivia are up: http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/new-report-reviews-changes-in-bolivia-s-economy-under-evo-morales-s-presidency http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191113010826/http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf The change in the size of the Bolivian financial system has also been impressive. Deposits have grown at an average yearly rate of 14 percent (between 2008 and 2019) even with a relative slowdown in the last couple of years (5.9 percent in 2018 and 3.4 percent year-over-year as of June 2019).19 [....] Directed lending for productive sectors and low interest rate ceilings are part of the toolkit successfully deployed by the monetary authorities.21 Total credit in the financial system has grown at an average of 16 percent per year since 2008.22
Deficit Spending
deficit spending has increased, but is relatively small
deficit spending has increased, but is relatively small: http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/new-report-reviews-changes-in-bolivia-s-economy-under-evo-morales-s-presidency http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191113010826/http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf Bolivia s government budget deficit averaged just 1.5 percent of GDP annually between 2006 and 2018. However, between 2015 and 2018, the average annual budget deficit grew to 7.5 percent of GDP; on average, 4.3 percentage points of the deficit were financed internally by the Central Bank.26 From 2005 to 2017, the Bolivian government increased social spending by 80 percent in real terms.
Social Spending
social spending has enormously increased
social spending has enormously increased: http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/new-report-reviews-changes-in-bolivia-s-economy-under-evo-morales-s-presidency http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191113010826/http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf Since 2000, Bolivia has the highest rate of public investment, as a percent of GDP, in the region.24 While acknowledging its positive macroeconomic effects, the IMF has criticized the efficiency of Bolivia s public investment in terms of outcomes per dollar spent.25 In the last few years, Bolivia s public sector deficit has increased substantially due to high public investment in the context of less favorable terms of trade. [....] Bolivia s government has directed large amounts of resources to social spending, especially cash transfers targeted toward vulnerable sectors of the population. The three most important transfer programs are Juancito Pinto, a grant to families with children that is designed to incentivize children s school attendance; Juana Azurduy, which gives funds to uninsured new mothers as an incentive for them to seek medical care during and after their pregnancies, in order to reduce maternal and infant mortality; and Renta Dignidad, which provides grants for those over the age of 60. These cash transfer programs translate into increased consumer spending and sustained reduction of extreme poverty. In 2018, 5.8 million Bolivians 51.8 percent of the population received a direct government cash transfer.29 [....] However, it is arguable that the government could have done even more for the poor. As a percent of GDP, social spending actually decreased between 2005 and 2013, though it has since risen to 12.7 percent of GDP, up from 12.4 percent of GDP in 2005.30
the minimum wage has sextupled since 2000 without significant increases in inflation
poverty rates have fallen from 37.7 to 15.2%
Unemployment
unemployment has enormously dropped
Purchasing Power
real incomes have substantially risen
real incomes have substantially risen: http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/new-report-reviews-changes-in-bolivia-s-economy-under-evo-morales-s-presidency http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191113010826/http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf The consistent increase in Bolivians purchasing power via increased employment, higher real wages, and government transfers has contributed to reducing the poverty rate (as measured by income). The poverty rate is below 35 percent (down from 60 percent in 2006), and the extreme poverty rate is 15.2 percent (down from 37.7 percent in 2006).35
Not Socialist: Investment
discussion of investment and socialism in Venezuela
discussion of investment and socialism in Venezuela: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/the-tragedy-of-venezuela/
What went wrong with the laudable aims of Chavismo? Could this tragedy been avoided? Well, yes, if the Chavista revolution had not stopped at less than halfway, leaving the economy still predominantly in the control of capital. Instead, the Chavista and Maduro governments relied on high oil prices and huge oil reserves to reduce poverty, while failing to transform the economy through productive investment, state ownership and planning. Between 1999 and 2012 the state had an income of $383bn from oil, due not only to the improvement in prices, but also to the increase in the royalties paid by the transnationals. However, this income was not used transform the productive sectors of the economy. Yes, some was used to improve the living standards of the most impoverished masses. But there was no plan for investment and growth. Venezuelan capital was allowed to get on with it or not as the case may be. Indeed, the share of industry in GDP fell from 18% of GDP in 1998 to 14% in 2012.
Not Socialist: Public Control
in 2011, public employment in Venezuela was just 18.4% of the labor force, compared to 14.2% of the labor force in the US
A more recent estimate by the International Labor Organization puts the public sector employment in Venezuela at 29%, below India, Russia, Norway, Singapore, Denmark
A more recent estimate by the International Labor Organization puts the public sector employment in Venezuela at 29%, below India, Russia, Norway, Singapore, Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector
Government consumption makes up just 14.5% of Venezuelan GDP
Oil: Impact on Economy
oil prices data
if your economy is highly dependent on oil, your economy mostly rises and falls with the oil prices
if your economy is highly dependent on oil, your economy mostly rises and falls with the oil prices:
Debt
data
Inflation Data
data
Food
report
report: http://cepr.net/blogs/the-americas-blog/the-media-venezuela-and-hunger-statistics-a-case-study-in-careless-reporting US newspapers and journals often attribute their Venezuelan hunger figures to a recent survey by the country s leading universities. The survey in question was published on February 27, 2016 by Sim n Bol var University, the Central University of Venezuela, and the Bengoa Foundation. The report, which focuses on Venezuelan nutrition, is part of an annual review covering the state of living conditions in the country. Maritza Landaeta-Jim nez, who as recently as 2013 was a member of the Venezuelan opposition s Nutrition Commission, headed the 2016 research. **The document, based on a survey of 6,413 Venezuelans, reported that 93 percent of Venezuelans felt that they did not have enough money to purchase food, and that 72.7 percent of Venezuelans had lost an average of 8.7 kilograms (19 pounds) in the past year. However, the same survey revealed that 67.5 percent of Venezuelans were eating three meals a day, and only 25 percent of the country felt that their nutrition could be categorized as deficient. **
shortages
shortages: https://nacla.org/news/2016/11/03/hunger-venezuela-look-beyond-headlines When Venezuelan economist and Universidad Sim n Bol var professor Pasqualina Curcio put these claims to the test in her extensive investigation of the country s current economic situation, she had some interesting findings. First, several of the missing products have not been regulated since 2010, and among those that are regulated, the government has raised prices in an effort to incentivize distributors several times recently, but this has not resulted in increased availability. Second, the shortages began to intensify in 2013, before oil prices plummeted and while dollars were still readily available. Even once oil prices dropped and dollars became less available, the government continued to prioritize dollars for food import, and by their own accounting, the production levels of Venezuela s major food companies have been stable or have even increased in that time. Curcio also found a correlation between intensity of food shortages and politically important moments, such as the lead-up to elections. Could it be that the shortages are manufactured? Many food sovereignty activists see it as no coincidence that Polar, the country s largest food company, responsible for many of the items missing from shelves, is owned by a well-known member of the political opposition to the government.
FAO venezuela
food security data
food security data in detail
food balance sheets data
food security methodology
food security methodology: http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-fs/fs-methods/fs-methods1/en/ Parameters to characterize the distribution of food consumption employed to estimate the PoU are derived from different sources. To compute per mean or per capita DEC at a national level, FAO relies on Food Balance Sheets. The latest data from this source refer to 2011; therefore, additional sources were needed to estimate the DEC for the last 3 years, from 2012-14. The main source for 2012 and 2013 estimates were projections prepared by the Trade and Market Division of FAO. The Holt-Winters distributed lag model was instead used to project the DEC for 2014. In some cases, the same model was applied to compute projections also for 2012 and 2013, when data from the Trade and Market Division were not available. The Holt-Winters model uses a process known as exponential smoothing, which attributes higher weights to the more recent data and progressively less weight to the older observations. Weights decrease in each period by a constant amount, which lies on an exponential curve. For countries showing peculiar patterns, other simpler forecasting models were used, such as linear or exponential trends.
food balance methodology
food balance methodology: http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/X9892E/X9892e01.htm#P78_13383 Food balance sheets are assembled form a variety of sources. The quality of the balance sheets and their coverage vary considerably among countries and commodities. Inaccuracies and errors may be introduced at each stage of a balance sheet's construction. The user of these data must therefore bear in mind their limitations. Ideally, the basic data required for the preparation of food balance sheets should be obtained from the same source. This implies that, firstly, the country should have a comprehensive statistical system which records all current information relating to each component of the food balance sheet (starting from producers to consumers). Secondly, concepts of the information adopted should be those of the food balance sheet concepts. Thirdly, the information available should be consistent, at least with respect to measurement unit and time reference period. In practice, however, such an ideal statistical system does not exist. Even in the few, mainly developed, countries which possess uncommonly sophisticated reporting procedures, the available data do not always meet either the second or third condition. Therefore, in practice, the basic data are necessarily based on a large variety of sources. The main sources commonly used are discussed below. Production and trade data are part of the ongoing national official statistics. They are based either on direct enquiries or records, or are estimated by Government agencies. Information on stock changes is available from marketing authorities and factories or from farmer stock surveys. Information on industrial uses are obtained from industrial/manufacturing censuses/surveys. Feed and seeding rates are obtained from cost of production surveys or are estimated by the Government agencies concerned. Losses occurring in industrial processing are also obtained from manufacturing surveys.
^ counter-fao article
Elections
1998 Presidential election
1998 election, Carter Center
1998 election, Carter Center: https://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc874.html https://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1151.pdf Overall, the Council of Freely Elected Heads of Government observers expressed enthusiasm about the election process and were impressed by the technology involved in the automation of the vote. Problems were reported in only 16 of 252 voting sites visited, and most of these would not affect the results of the elections. The delegates found voters, poll workers, party witnesses, and soldiers worked together harmoniously to make this a transparent and peaceful election that clearly reflected the will of the Venezuelan people.
2000 Presidential + National Assembly election
2000 election, Carter Center
2000 election, Carter Center: https://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc1013.html https://www.cartercenter.org/documents/297.pdf We congratulate the Venezuelan people for their enthusiastic participation in yesterday s elections. We are extremely impressed with citizens desire to exercise their right to vote and commend them on their patience and peacefulness. Our delegates found political party witnesses in almost all voting sites, representing a variety of parties at the national and local levels. In addition, the voting table workers had the basic knowledge necessary, worked diligently to instruct the voters on properly completing the ballots, and strived to overcome the difficulties of this complicated election process.
2000 election, Organization of American States
2000 election, Organization of American States: http://www.oas.org/sap/publications/2000/moe/venezuela/pbl_30_2000_eng.pdf The election campaign was conducted in an overall framework of freedom of expression, pluralism, and a high degree of public participation, fostered by the diversity of candidates, party backed and independent, and by the efforts of campaigners to mobilize the public, at the national as well as at the state and municipal levels.
2004 Presidential recall referendum
2004 recall referendum, Carter Center
2004 recall referendum, Carter Center: https://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc1821.html https://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1820.pdf https://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1834.pdf https://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1837.pdf The second audit showed a high accuracy of the voting machines with discrepancies of less than 0.1 percent. The sample was analyzed, and it does not have different properties than the universe. The sample generation program was analyzed as part of the 2nd audit process and again in this study. Both studies showed that the sample does not operate on a subset of the universe, thus hiding or masquerading some of the properties of the universe. Consequently the results of the 2nd audit accurately confirm the electoral results of Aug. 15.
2005 National Assembly election
2006 election
2006 election, Carter Center
2006 election, Carter Center: https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/peace_publications/democracy/venezuela_2006_eng.pdf In response to an invitation from the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE), The Carter Center organized a specialized, technical mission to observe the use of automated voting technology employed in the Dec. 3, 2006, presidential elections in Venezuela.
2007 constitutional referendum
2007 constitutional referendum, Carter Center
2007 constitutional referendum, Carter Center: https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/venezuela_120307.html Venezuelan citizens responded on Dec. 2 in a peaceful and orderly way to the referendum convoked by the National Electoral Council (CNE) to approve or reject the proposal to reform the National Constitution, presented to the citizens by the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. With 90 percent of the vote counted, the CNE declared the referendum defeated, and immediately thereafter President Hugo Ch vez Fr as accepted the results on national television.
2010 election
2012 Presidential election
2012 Presidential election, Carter Center
2012 Presidential election, Carter Center: https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/peace_publications/election_reports/venezuela-2012-election-study-mission-final-rpt.pdf The 2012 presidential elections in Venezuela won by Hugo Rafael Ch vez Fr as reflected and reinforced the intense political contestation and social polarization Venezuelans have grown accustomed to since Ch vez was first elected to the presidency in December 1998. Fortunately, tensions did not boil over and voting took place peacefully amid the high stakes election on Oct. 7, 2012. [....] Even so, isolated claims of fraud surfaced after the vote. Nevertheless, the whole opposition leadership, including, most importantly, Capriles himself, unequivocally rejected those claims, stating that the results reflected the will of the electorate. [....] Because the Center did not have an election observation mission in Venezuela, this report is not a comprehensive assessment of the quality of the electoral process as a whole. The report is based on the interviews conducted, the reports of national observer organizations, an analysis of Venezuelan laws and regulations, and a digest of personal observations from a nine-month monitoring period.
2013 Presidential election
2013 Presidential election, Carter Center
2013 Presidential election, Carter Center: https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/venezuela-070313.html https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/news/peace_publications/election_reports/venezuela-final-rpt-2013-elections.pdf As the high turnout and many opinion polls demonstrate, the Venezuelan population, and the political parties and candidates in gene ral, have confidence in the performance and integrity of the automated touch-screen voting machines. As the postelection citizen verification audits of 100 percent of the voting machines demonstrated, the automated system functioned as expected in recording the votes cast, transmitting, and counting them on April 14. There was not agreement, however, about the quality of the voting conditions and guarantees that every registered voter is able to vote one time, and only one time. In stark comparison to the October election, when the Capriles campaign and the MUD opposition coalition questioned the conditions of competition, after the April election they also questioned the conditions of voting, a heightened criticism that went to the heart of the system s legitimacy.
2015 election
2018 Presidential election
Jimmy Carter, 2012
Jimmy Carter, 2012: http://web.archive.org/web/20120923221123/http://cartercenter.org/news/multimedia/Conversations/30-years-of-the-carter-center.html https://youtu.be/VPKPw4t6Sic?t=2629 Some of the problems that John mentioned are serious, but I think the elections in Venezuela; although some people have criticized the result, which is Hugo Chavez having won. There is no doubt in my mind, having monitored very closely the election process, that he won fairly and squarely. As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.
Media
from 2000 to 2010, government media averaged just 3% audience share
from 2000 to 2010, government media averaged just 3% audience share: http://cepr.net/documents/publications/2010_12_venezuela_media.pdf As can be seen from the table, as of September 2010, Venezuelan state TV channels had just a 5.4 percent audience share. Of the other 94.6 percent of the audience, 61.4 percent were watching privately owned television channels, and 33.1 percent were watching paid TV. Since the private TV owners are mostly against the government, it is clear that more than 94 percent of the TV that is seen by Venezuelans is not progovernment. In fact, much of the private media is stridently antigovernment, in ways that go beyond the boundaries of what is permitted in the United States, for example. There are no data that describe the breakdown of audience share of the various TV channels on the basis of political bias. However, it is clear from this data, based on household surveys over a 10-year period, that statements about the Venezuelan government controlling or dominating the media are not only exaggerated, but simply false.
in the 2013 election, the opposition candidate Capriles routinely received more airtime than Maduro
Economy Under Allende: Printing Money Almost Certainly Caused Major Inflation
Pseudoerasmus 2015: the Chilean deficit rose from 6.6% to 30.5% of GDP and was financed almost entirely by printing money (6.6% to 30.4%)
Pseudoerasmus 2015: the Chilean deficit rose from 6.6% to 30.5% of GDP and was financed almost entirely by printing money (6.6% to 30.4%): https://pseudoerasmus.com/2015/05/21/the-invisible-blockade-against-allendes-chile/
Caputo 2020: hyperinflation started around 1972q2 and rose from ~25%pa in 1970 to ~600%pa in 1973, seignorage rose from 4% in 1970 to 14% to 1973
Economy Under Allende: Cia Funded Opposition
Pseudoerasmus 2015
Hersh 1974: in September 1974, the CIA admitted that it spent $8 million to support a strike among truckers, shopkeepers, and other professionals
Hersh 1974: in September 1974, the CIA admitted that it spent $8 million to support a strike among truckers, shopkeepers, and other professionals: https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/20/archives/cia-is-linked-to-strikes-in-chile-that-beset-allende-intelligence.html
Wilkie 2020: Chile saw dramatically increasing industrial disputes from 1962 (410 disputes, 84k workers involved) to 1966 (1073, 195k, 2015k working days learned) to 1973 (2050 disputes, 711k workers, 2503k working days lost)
Wilkie 2020: Chile saw dramatically increasing industrial disputes from 1962 (410 disputes, 84k workers involved) to 1966 (1073, 195k, 2015k working days learned) to 1973 (2050 disputes, 711k workers, 2503k working days lost): https://archive.org/details/statisticalabstr0018unse/page/209/mode/1up
^ see chile_industrial_disputes.R for graph xxx todo
^ see chile_industrial_disputes.R for graph xxx todo
Economy: Sabotage
the CIA funded the truckers and taxi strikes that crippled the Chilean economy
the CIA funded the truckers and taxi strikes that crippled the Chilean economy: https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/20/archives/cia-is-linked-to-strikes-in-chile-that-beset-allend The Central Intelligence Agency secretly financed striking labor unions and trade groups in Chile for more than 18 months before President Salvador Allende Gossens was overthrown, intelligence sources revealed today. They said that the majority of more than $8 million authorized for clandestine C.I.A. activities in Chile was used in 1972 and 1973 to provide strike benefits and other means of support for anti Allende strikers and workers. [....] Among those heavily subsidized, the sources said, were the organizers of a nationwide truck strike that lasted 26 days in the fall of 1972, seriously disrupting Chile's economy and provoking the first of a series of labor crises for President Allende. Continue reading the main story Direct subsidies, the sources said, also were provided for a strike of middle class shopkeepers and a taxi strike among others, that disrupted the capital city of Santiago in the summer of 1973, shortly before Mr. Allende was over thrown by a military coup. At its peak, the 1973 strikes involved more than 250,000 truck drivers, shopkeepers and professionals who banded to gether in a middle class move ment that, many analysts have concluded, made a violent overthrow inevitable.
shop-owners and the USA both worked to create an artificial shortage of food
shop-owners and the USA both worked to create an artificial shortage of food: https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-106: The march protested shortages of foodstuffs and a distribution system that generated long lines of shoppers waiting to buy basic products at controlled prices. The shortages themselves were a product of conservative obstruction, as store owners took items off the shelves and sold them on the black market; the opposition media created panic-buying by reporting on shortages that did not (yet) exist, and Washington instituted an invisible blockade by denying credit to the UP government.
the IMF, acting for US interests, largely blocked loan requests from Chile
the IMF, acting for US interests, largely blocked loan requests from Chile: http://michael-hudson.com/2003/10/chiles-failed-economic-laboratory/ After Pinochet was installed, the IMF and World Bank restructured Chilean debt on much more favorable terms than those afforded Allende, and foreign banks returned almost overnight.
the IMF was more than happy to give big loans to Pinochet
CIA Opposition
the CIA funded the 1964 election
the CIA funded the 1964 election: https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-106 "The CIA sweetened the alliance, providing an estimated $4 million of covert assistance to Frei and stood behind the PDC s scare campaign designed to play to women voters, intimating that if Allende won, they stood to lose their children, their homes, and even the concept of motherhood itself."
the CIA planned to sabotague Allende's presidency
the CIA planned to sabotague Allende's presidency: https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore A smooth transition was further undermined by the Nixon Administration s determination to block Allende. As part of a broader scheme, the CIA supplied a group of right-wing plotters with arms and funding to kidnap the constitutionalist Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Ren Schneider, an outrage to be blamed on the Left and designed to prod the military into action against Allende.45 The plot failed, Schneider was killed, and on October 24, Congress elected the UP s candidate. But intransigent opposition to Allende from Washington, the National Party, and an emerging paramilitary right, together with Christian Democratic distrust, suggested how demanding would be his task ahead.
the CIA funded the 1970 election
the CIA funded the 1970 election: https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-106 With polling predicting an Alessandri victory, and the CIA funding a spoiling operation designed to raise fears of Allende, Washington expected voters would again reject the socialist.
Allende Democratic
left and center-left parties gained under Allende (1973)
most of the claims of authoritarianism under Allende -- terrorist training camps, Plan Z, "17,000 Cubans", are provably false
most of the claims of authoritarianism under Allende -- terrorist training camps, Plan Z, "17,000 Cubans", are provably false: https://www.economist.com/the-americas/1999/01/28/blackwashing-allende
Allende refused the revolutionary path, to his party's leadership's chagrin
Allende refused the revolutionary path, to his party's leadership's chagrin: https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore Debate within the PS revealed a sharply divided party. Members of the party s Central Committee, having declared the party Marxist-Leninist in 1967, opposed Allende s selection, but the rank-and-file and regional party heads were firm in their support for the only person they thought could unite the left. In January 1970, the UP named him their candidate. It was, the Communist s Lu s Corval n dryly observed, a forceps birth.
Allende's economic policy was aimed at increasing democratic support
Allende's economic policy was aimed at increasing democratic support: https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore Allende s approach tightly entwined economic and political policy. An economy that expanded through Keynesian demand-side measures, advanced national producers at the expense of multinational firms and small businesses over monopolies, turned land over to peasant cultivators, and redistributed income, would also, he predicted, engender support at the polls. With enough time, he could introduce a plebiscite allowing the constitutional changes needed to give him the authority to further expand state control of the economy, create a single legislative chamber, and reform the judiciary.
Allende refused to use military power to implement his goals
Allende refused to use military power to implement his goals: https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-106 When Army General Roberto Viaux revolted against Frei in 1969, the Central Committee of the Socialist Party called on workers not to defend the bourgeois institutional order, but [instead] to mobilize around their own social and political demands. Allende vigorously dissented and rushed to the Moneda to show his support for the President.66 And yet, Allende s conviction that the military must respect the constitutional order was not shared by his conservative opponents. Even before Allende was elected, Jorge Alessandri, in a May 1970 campaign speech, had called on the patriotic military to intervene as needed to save the liberty that we so love from those who hold criminal doctrines. 67
Ryan 2008
Church Report 1975
Economy Under Pinochet
there was no Chilean miracle
Economy: Data
unemployment under Pinochet
life expectancy in Chile, 1960-2018
change in life expectancy in Chile, 1960-2017
after pinochet, poverty rapidly fell from 40% to 15% in 25 years
after pinochet, poverty rapidly fell from 40% to 15% in 25 years: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2007/08/16/destitute-no-more
post-Pinochet, poverty fell faster in Chile than any other Latin American country
post-Pinochet, poverty fell faster in Chile than any other Latin American country: http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website00819C/WEB/PDF/CHILE.PDF
pinochet significantly increased inequality
inflation
real GDP per capita
GDP
infant mortality
net migration
reserve assets
Economy: "Socialism", Privatization, Re-Nationalization
the 1982 crash was partially caused by and worsened by privatization
the 1982 crash was partially caused by and worsened by privatization: https://www.theguardian.com/business/1998/nov/22/observerbusiness.theobserver
Pinochet did not destroy Chile's economy all by himself. He had the help of academia's most brilliant minds: a gaggle of Milton Friedman's trainees, the Chicago Boys. Under their spell, the General abolished the minimum wage, outlawed union bargaining, privatised the pension system, abolished all taxes on wealth and business profits, slashed public employment, privatised 212 industries and 66 banks and ran a fiscal surplus. Free of the dead hand of bureaucracy, taxes and unions, the country took a giant leap... into bankruptcy and depression. After nine years of Chicago-style economics, Chile's industry keeled over and died. [....] The Chicago Boys persuaded the junta that removing restrictions on the nation's banks would free them to attract foreign capital to fund industrial expansion. Pinochet sold off the state banks - at a 40 per cent discount against book value. They fell into the hands of two conglomerate empires, controlled by speculators Javier Vial and Manuel Cruzsat. Using these banks, Vial and Cruzat bought up manufacturers, then leveraged these assets with loans from foreign investors panting for their piece of the state giveaway. By 1982, the pyramid finance game was up. The Vial and Cruzat 'Grupos' defaulted. Industry shut down, private pensions became worthless, and the currency swooned. Riots and strikes by a population too desperate to fear bullets forced Pinochet to boot out his beloved Chicago experimentalists.
after the crash, Pinochet moved back towards "socialism" (re-nationalization of the copper firms)
after the crash, Pinochet moved back towards "socialism" (re-nationalization of the copper firms): https://www.theguardian.com/business/1998/nov/22/observerbusiness.theobserver Reluctantly, the General restored the minimum wage and collective bargaining. Having previously decimated the ranks of state employees, he authorised a programme to create 500,000 jobs. Chile was pulled from depression by dull old Keynesian remedies, all Franklin Roosevelt, zero Margaret Thatcher. (The junta even instituted what is today South America's only law restricting the flow of foreign capital.) New Deal tactics rescued Chile from the panic of 1983, but the nation's long-term recovery and growth is the result of (cover the children's ears) a large dose of socialism. To save the nation's pension system, Pinochet nationalised banks and industry on a scale unimagined by Salvador Allende. The General expropriated at will, offering little or no compensation. While most were eventually reprivatised, the state retained ownership of one industry: copper. For nearly a century, copper has meant Chile and Chile has meant copper. Dr Janet Finn, metals expert at the University of Montana, remarks: 'It's absurd to describe a nation as a miracle of free enterprise when the engine of the economy remains in government hands.' (And not just any government: a Pinochet law, still in force, gives the military 10 per cent of state copper revenues.) Copper has provided between 30 and 70 per cent of the nation's export earnings. This is the hard currency that has built today's Chile. The proceeds from the mines seized from Anaconda and Kennecott in 1973 was Allende's posthumous gift to his nation. Agribusiness was the second locomotive of the Allende years. According to Professor Arturo Vasquez of Georgetown University, Washington DC, Allende's land reform, the break-up of feudal estates (which Pinochet could not fully reverse), created a new class of productive tiller-owners who, along with corporate and co-operative operators, now bring in a stream of export earnings to rival copper.
Clips Todo Reread
Death toll under Pinochet: 3000 + 27 000 tortured
Clip about food shortages/ Trucker's strike
Clip about food shortages/ Trucker's strike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6ibj2ZInLk
Clip about Victor Jara
Clip about how the US attempted to stop Allende's inauguration
Clip about how the US attempted to stop Allende's inauguration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R7MNnoYktM
1971: Economic boom
1971: Municipal elections
militancy of the peasantry
MIR not supported by Allende
CDP support for coup
Strikes
Rightwing Terrorism
Debt
Copper
Inflation
Hoarding
Autocracy Under Pinochet
the 1978 national consultation had an absurdly biased form and question design
the 1978 national consultation had an absurdly biased form and question design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_national_consultation,_1978
International Relations: Airstrikes: Dramatic Decrease
All AirWars graphs
Iraq and Syria: 31 civilian deaths
Somalia: 0 civilian deaths
Yemen: 4-8 civilian deaths
International Relations: Airstrikes: Where to Push Biden
demand increased monitoring, investigating, and transparently releasing estimates of civilian harm from US military actions
International Relations: Syria: Comparison With Russia
Airwars: this page notes only events attribtued *solely* to Russia, excluding those linked to the Syrian regime (which is difficult to distinguish, given that they fly the same machines and use the same munitions)
Airwars: this page notes only events attribtued *solely* to Russia, excluding those linked to the Syrian regime (which is difficult to distinguish, given that they fly the same machines and use the same munitions): https://airwars.org/conflict/russian-military-in-syria/
Airwars: see discussion here: estimated death toll: about 24,743 total, with 4.3k-6.4k from Russia alone and 10k-17.1k from events with Russia and another actor alleged
Airwars: see discussion here: estimated death toll: about 24,743 total, with 4.3k-6.4k from Russia alone and 10k-17.1k from events with Russia and another actor alleged: https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations/patterns-of-civilian-harm-from-russias-military-actions-in-syria-2015-2022/
Airwars: even the United States admits to roughly 1 in 13 of the civilian deaths that its strikes likely caused
Airwars: even the United States admits to roughly 1 in 13 of the civilian deaths that its strikes likely caused: https://airwars.org/conflict-data/the-credibles/
Additional Airstrike Datasets
BIJ: ended in 2020, covered Afghanistan (2015-20), Pakistan (2004-2018), Somalia (2001-2020), and Yemen (2001-2020)
Yemen Data Project: Yemen (2015-current)
Yemen Data Project: Yemen (2015-current): https://yemendataproject.org/data.html
FDD Long War Journal: Yemen (2002-2019), Somalia (2007-2022), Pakistan (2004-2018), Libya (2014-2019)
NewAmerica, partnering with AirWars: Libya 2012-2020
NewAmerica: Somalia 2003-2022
NewAmerica: Yemen 2002-2021
NewAmerica: Pakistan 2003-2018
Airwars: Afghanistan secret data
Airwars: "credibles" released by the US military
Accuracy of General Election Polling
as general election approaches
Mail-in Voting:
very popular
very popular: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-support-voting-by-mail-but-not-all-of-them-want-to-or-can/
According to the Pew Research Center, 65 percent of adults said that any voter should be able to vote early or absentee without an excuse. Furthermore, an additional 14 percent thought a documented reason should be required, but that COVID-19 should count as one of the reasons. As a result, only 19 percent of Americans believed that voters should need an excuse other than the pandemic to vote absentee.
impact on party vote is small
Labor Issues: Democrats in General
Newman 2020: Democrats are more consistently voting in favor of union bills than ever before (mostly due to losing conservative Southern senators)
Trump and Unions
Trump has attacked private-sector unions
Trump has attacked public-sector unions
Trump and Minimum Wages
Trump has said he opposes any federal minimum wage
Trump Has Appointed Many Judges
Appointments
Biden and the 1994 Crime Bill
background from Wikipedia
background from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, H.R. 3355, Pub.L. 103 322 is an Act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement; it became law in 1994. It is the largest crime bill in the history of the United States and consisted of 356 pages that provided for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and $6.1 billion in funding for prevention programs, which were designed with significant input from experienced police officers.[1] Sponsored by Representative Jack Brooks of Texas, the bill was originally written by Senator Joe Biden of Delaware and then was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
opinion polling: passage of the crime bill was preceded by a significant increase in the belief that crime was the "most important" issue and followed by a substantial decrease in said belief
opinion polling: passage of the crime bill was preceded by a significant increase in the belief that crime was the "most important" issue and followed by a substantial decrease in said belief: https://cdn.ymaws.com/counciloncj.org/resource/resmgr/crime_bill/overview_and_reflections.pdf
opinion polling: most black voters and many black representatives (28 of 41) supported the 1994 crime bill
opinion polling: most black voters and many black representatives (28 of 41) supported the 1994 crime bill: https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/steve-chapman/ct-column-biden-booker-crime-1994-chapman-20190726-lihqcq7qhbffnfu57lyktyjdl4-story.html
A 1994 Gallup survey found that 58% of African Americans supported the crime bill compared with 49% of whites. The only black senator, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, supported it. Of the 40 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, just 12 voted against it.
at the time, most Americans and most black people supported the conservative elements of the 1994 crime bill; this must be contextualized in the 1960-1990 crime wave and the constant drumbeat of news coverage of that crime wave
at the time, most Americans and most black people supported the conservative elements of the 1994 crime bill; this must be contextualized in the 1960-1990 crime wave and the constant drumbeat of news coverage of that crime wave: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162844
It is no wonder that many African Americans had started to embrace punitive prescriptions by 1994. In the General Social Survey, black support for the death penalty for individuals convicted of murder increased from 39 percent in 1980 to 53.5 percent in 1992. African Americans certainly supported rehabilitation more than whites and desired gun control. Many were also clear-eyed about racial disparities in the criminal justice system. According to a 1994 Los Angeles Times poll, 43 percent of African Americans believed that stricter laws and prison sentences would increase discrimination against minority groups. Still, concern about racism and liberal tendencies did not curtail black support for punishment. In that same poll, 71 percent of blacks said that juveniles who commit crimes should be treated as adults, and 67 percent supported proposals that would require any criminal convicted of three violent felonies be imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole. Other surveys confirm these trends. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey, majorities of racial minorities supported adding 100,000 more police officers on the streets, allowing juveniles as young as 14 to be tried as adults when accused of a serious crime, and making more offenses eligible for the death penalty. A 1994 Time/CNN poll showed that, while only 33 percent of African Americans supported stop and frisk, 64.5 percent favored life imprisonment for anyone convicted of three serious crimes and 79 percent supported a 10pm curfew for children under the age of 18. Based her analysis of this survey, Katherine Tate, an expert on African American politics at Brown University, concluded that black opinion favored the conservative elements of Clinton s crime bill.
Gallup: 1994 saw highest support for "more law enforcement" as approach to lowering crime
Gallup: 1994 saw highest support for "more law enforcement" as approach to lowering crime: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1603/crime.aspx
the crime bill did not cause (or end) mass incarceration
Sabol 2020: xxx
Sabol 2020: xxx: https://online.ucpress.edu/fsr/article-abstract/32/3/153/109325/The-1994-Crime-BillLegacy-and-Lessons-Impacts-on http://sci-hub.se/10.1525/fsr.2020.32.3.153 While many African-American communities, and others, were clearly concerned about crime and violence, Black political leadership did not coalesce around the bill. Congressman John Conyers, the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and then-chair of the House Judiciary Committee, led an effort to promote an alternative crime bill, deriding prison expansion as a simplistic approach to the crime problem. The Black Caucus bill emphasized support for crime prevention programs, drug treatment, and creating job opportunities.
Bad Economics: Overall
there's no evidence that trump has affected the economy positively or negatively
there's no evidence that trump has affected the economy positively or negatively: https://voxeu.org/article/stable-genius-estimating-trump-effect-us-economy
Bad Economics: Debt
^ context: before Trump, most US debt came from the Bush tax cuts and Bush wars
Bad Economics: Tax Bill / Tax Cut
83% of the benefits of the Trump tax bill will go to the top 1%
Bad Economics: Bad Trade Policy
each of trump's tariffs increased import prices by between 5% and 25%
each of trump's tariffs increased import prices by between 5% and 25%: https://www.princeton.edu/~reddings/papers/CEPR-DP13564.pdf Overall, using standard economic methods, we find that the full incidence of the tariff falls on domestic consumers, with a reduction in U.S. real income of $1.4 billion per month by the end of 2018. We also see similar patterns for foreign countries who have retaliated against the U.S., which indicates that the trade war also reduced real income for other countries.
Bad Leadersihp: High Cabinet Turnover
trump's turnover is higher than previous administrations
Corruption
about $16 million from the Trump campaign, other Republican campaigns, and the federal government have been spent on Trump properties
about $16 million from the Trump campaign, other Republican campaigns, and the federal government have been spent on Trump properties: https://projects.propublica.org/paying-the-president/
about $16 million from the Trump campaign, other Republican campaigns, and the federal government have been spent on Trump properties
about $16 million from the Trump campaign, other Republican campaigns, and the federal government have been spent on Trump properties: https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-properties-taxpayer-campaigns-presidency-91e3755d-23cd-42d1-897d-c0c81ac509dd.html
Lies
**Trump claimed 'little Dem support' for opioid bill all Dems voted for:** Trump quote: "And I'll soon sign into the law the largest legislative effort in history to address the opioid crisis where just this year we got $6 billion from Congress -- thanks to Rob Portman and a lot of others -- thank you, Rob -- but Rob and so many others helped. Very little Democrat support."
**Trump claimed 'little Dem support' for opioid bill all Dems voted for:** Trump quote: "And I'll soon sign into the law the largest legislative effort in history to address the opioid crisis where just this year we got $6 billion from Congress -- thanks to Rob Portman and a lot of others -- thank you, Rob -- but Rob and so many others helped. Very little Democrat support." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjT1fB0N_CY&feature=youtu.be&t=2493 https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-maga-rally-lebanon-oh-october-12-2018 House vote: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2018/roll415.xml Senate vote: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=2&vote=00221
**Trump claims he signed first military pay raise in 10 years; military pay has been raised every year since 1983: **: Trump quote: "We just approved $700 billion for our military. So we re going to be (applause) we re going to be having the best equipment ever known. And next year, $716 billion. So I wanted to let you know. (Applause.) And, by the way, I know you don t care about this, but that also includes raises for our military. (Applause.) First time in 10 years."
**Trump claims he signed first military pay raise in 10 years; military pay has been raised every year since 1983: **: Trump quote: "We just approved $700 billion for our military. So we re going to be (applause) we re going to be having the best equipment ever known. And next year, $716 billion. So I wanted to let you know. (Applause.) And, by the way, I know you don t care about this, but that also includes raises for our military. (Applause.) First time in 10 years." https://youtu.be/Zqa54Nd8kBk?t=303 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-celebration-military-mothers-spouses-event/ There has been a pay raise every year since 1984: https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2019/FY19_Green_Book.pdf https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/10/donald-trump/did-donald-trump-sign-first-military-pay-raise-10-/ Graph: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/10/donald-trump/did-donald-trump-sign-first-military-pay-raise-10-/
**Trump claims last Rep to win Wisconsin was Eisenhower:** Trump quote: "When we won Wisconsin, it hadn't been won by a Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Did you know that? And I won Wisconsin. And I like Wisconsin a lot but we won Wisconsin. And Ronald Reagan, remember, Wisconsin was the state that Ronald Reagan did not win. And that was in 1952. And I've gotten to know the people here, and they're incredible."
**Trump claims last Rep to win Wisconsin was Eisenhower:** Trump quote: "When we won Wisconsin, it hadn't been won by a Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Did you know that? And I won Wisconsin. And I like Wisconsin a lot but we won Wisconsin. And Ronald Reagan, remember, Wisconsin was the state that Ronald Reagan did not win. And that was in 1952. And I've gotten to know the people here, and they're incredible." https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1012401634750746624 https://www.c-span.org/video/?447876-1/president-trump-delivers-remarks-rally-great-falls-montana&start=3173 In reality, post-WW2 Republicans won Wisconsin in 1956 (Eisenhower), 1960 (Nixon), 1968 (Nixon), 1972 (Nixon), 1980 (Reagan), 1984 (Ronald Reagan), and 2016 (Trump): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_Wisconsin
another lie
another lie
LGBT Rights
trump loves the gays btw
trump rolled back trans policies
The Wall
a majority oppose the border wall and have done so since the 90's
a majority oppose the border wall and have done so since the 90's: https://news.gallup.com/poll/246455/solid-majority-opposes-new-construction-border-wall.aspx Gallup first asked about it in 1993, when 71% said they opposed "erecting a wall along the border with Mexico." Opposition eased slightly in 1995, when 62% were against erecting a wall. In 2006, opposition to "building a wall along the border with Mexico" was 56%.
Foreign Policy
trump is no pacifist
trump is no pacifist: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/09/donald-trump-is-dropping-bombs-at-unprecedented-levels/ Judging from Trump s embrace of the use of air power [...] he is the most hawkish president in modern history. Under Trump, the United States has dropped about 20,650 bombs through July 31, or 80 percent the number dropped under Obama for the entirety of 2016. At this rate, Trump will exceed Obama s last-year total by Labor Day. In Iraq and Syria, data shows that the United States is dropping bombs at unprecedented levels. In July, the coalition to defeat the Islamic State (read: the United States) dropped 4,313 bombs, 77 percent more than it dropped last July. In June, the number was 4,848 1,600 more bombs than were dropped in any one month under President Barack Obama since the anti-ISIS campaign started three years ago. In Afghanistan, the number of weapons released has also shot up since Trump took office. April saw more bombs dropped in the country since the height of Obama s troop surge in 2012. That was also the month that the United States bombed Afghanistan s Mamand Valley with the largest non-nuclear bomb ever dropped in combat.
Vox on Trump in Aghanistan (2017)
Self Made
Trump underperformed the real estate market
Trump underperformed the real estate market: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-donald-trump-left-13-billion-on-table-2016-03-01
Starting with Trump s professed net worth of more than $200 million in an interview published by The New York Times in November 1976, Griffin says the FTSE NAREIT All Equity REITS Index-compounded return would have returned $23.2 billon at the end of 2015, considerably above Mr. Trump s recent self-reported net worth of approximately $10 billion.
trump was not self-made -- he inherited about $413 million
about half of Americans acknowledge that Trump was born wealthy
Alleged Media Anti-Bernie Bias: Weak Evidence
Shorenstein analysis: in the pre-primary (Jan 2015-Dec 2015), Sanders received more-positive coverage than Clinton most of the time
Shorenstein analysis: in the pre-primary (Jan 2015-Dec 2015), Sanders received more-positive coverage than Clinton most of the time: https://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/
Shorenstein analysis: in the primary (Jan 2016-June 2016), Sanders received more-positive coverage than Clinton 1/2 of the time and less-positive 1/2 of the time
Shorenstein analysis: in the primary (Jan 2016-June 2016), Sanders received more-positive coverage than Clinton 1/2 of the time and less-positive 1/2 of the time: https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-presidential-primaries/
opinion polling: Sanders polled around 5% until May 2015 and rose to ~40% by April 2016
Berniebros Didn't Vote for Clinton: False
only 1 in 10 Sanders voters ended up voting for Trump, comparable to switches for other candidates
only 1 in 10 Sanders voters ended up voting for Trump, comparable to switches for other candidates: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. [....] Schaffner tells NPR that around 12 percent of Republican primary voters (including 34 percent of Ohio Gov. John Kasich voters and 11 percent of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio voters) ended up voting for Clinton. And according to one 2008 study, around 25 percent of Clinton primary voters in that election ended up voting for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general. (In addition, the data showed 13 percent of McCain primary voters ended up voting for Obama, and 9 percent of Obama voters ended up voting for McCain perhaps signaling something that swayed voters between primaries and the general election, or some amount of error in the data, or both.)
Federal Money: Blue States Are Not "Welfare Queens"
Pew 2021: federal aid as a percent of state budgets tends to be higher in red states than blue states (likely because red states are poorer)
Pew 2021: federal aid as a percent of state budgets tends to be higher in red states than blue states (likely because red states are poorer): https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2021/12/22/2019-federal-share-of-state-revenue-remains-stable
Tierney 2017: red states tend to take more from the federal government than they give (likely because red states are poorer)
Productivity: Blue States Not Slackers
Muro and Liu 2016: Clinton-voting counties made up 64% of the US GDP; Trump-voting counties were just 36%
Poverty: Blue States Not Poorer
Kneebone 2016: from 2000 to 2010-2014, poverty has grown faster in R than D districts; this suggests that Republican policies failed worse at preventing poverty
Kneebone 2016: from 2000 to 2010-2014, poverty has grown faster in R than D districts; this suggests that Republican policies failed worse at preventing poverty: https://www.brookings.edu/research/poverty-crosses-party-lines/ Between 2000 and 2010-14, the poor population grew faster in red districts than blue. The number of people living below the poverty line (e.g., $24,230 for a family of four in 2014) in Republican districts climbed by 49 percent between 2000 and 2010-14 compared with a 33 percent increase in Democratic districts. As a result, Republican districts accounted for 60 percent of the increase in the nation s poor population during that time. At the same time, poverty rates rose by similar margins in both red and blue districts (3.3 and 3.2 percentage points, respectively).
Causal Evidence: Republican Trifectas Harm Democracy
Grumbach 2022 preprint: differences-in-differences: Rep trifectas causally decrease the Democracy Index, a measure of democratic performance (composed mostly of gerrymandering metrics, composed less of voter disenfranchisement & voting difficulty metrics) by 1 point, which fully explains the difference between Rep and Dem or mixed states
Grumbach 2022 preprint: differences-in-differences: Rep trifectas causally decrease the Democracy Index, a measure of democratic performance (composed mostly of gerrymandering metrics, composed less of voter disenfranchisement & voting difficulty metrics) by 1 point, which fully explains the difference between Rep and Dem or mixed states: https://sites.google.com/view/jakegrumbach/working-papers https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983851175172517928/grumbach2022.pdf
In this article, we use the State Democracy Index to test a set of prominent theories of the causes of democratic expansion and backsliding in the U.S. Drawing on American and comparative democracy literatures, we develop predictions about the drivers of democratic expansion and backsliding. We estimate the effects of political competition, polarization, and racial demographic change on states democratic performance. The results suggest that none of these factors is central to dynamics in state democratic performance. Republican control of state government, however, consistently and profoundly reduces state democratic performance during this time period.
Us House Effects
on average, Democrats would need to win 54.4% of the vote to win a majority in the US house: in the average election from 2012 to 2016, 59 of 435 seats (14%) would have changed party if percent of votes cast matched the percent of seats won; Democrats unfairly gained 20 seats; Republicans unfairly gained 39 seats; on net, Republicans unfairly gained a 19 of 435 seats (4.4%) partisan advantage
on average, Democrats would need to win 54.4% of the vote to win a majority in the US house: in the average election from 2012 to 2016, 59 of 435 seats (14%) would have changed party if percent of votes cast matched the percent of seats won; Democrats unfairly gained 20 seats; Republicans unfairly gained 39 seats; on net, Republicans unfairly gained a 19 of 435 seats (4.4%) partisan advantage: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2019/05/09/468916/voter-determined-districts/
gerrymandering clearly benefits republicans in the US House
State House Effects
AP 2016
AP 2018
State House Examples: Republican Minority Rule
in 2018, out of the 99 US state legislatures, 9 had Republicans win a minority of the popular vote and a majority of the seats; no parallel exists for the Democrats
in 2018, out of the 99 US state legislatures, 9 had Republicans win a minority of the popular vote and a majority of the seats; no parallel exists for the Democrats: https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1322228985137430537
Us House Examples
in 2018 in Ohio, Democratic candidates for the US House received 47% of the votes and 25% of the seats
in 2018 in Ohio, Democratic candidates for the US House received 47% of the votes and 25% of the seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Ohio
in 2018 in North Carolina, Democratic candidates for the US House received 48% of the votes and 23% of the seats
in 2018 in North Carolina, Democratic candidates for the US House received 48% of the votes and 23% of the seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_North_Carolina
in 2018 in Wisconsin, Democratic candidates for the US House received 53% of the votes and 38% of the seats
in 2018 in Wisconsin, Democratic candidates for the US House received 53% of the votes and 38% of the seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Wisconsin
Rising Illiberal Rhetoric
L hrmann Medzihorsky Lindberg 2021: the Republican Party has adopted increasingly illiberal (anti-pluralist) rhetoric and policy positions; it is closer to the illiberal parties of Orban's Fidesz, Modi's BJP, Erdogan's AKP, or Bolsonaro's PSL
L hrmann Medzihorsky Lindberg 2021: the Republican Party has adopted increasingly illiberal (anti-pluralist) rhetoric and policy positions; it is closer to the illiberal parties of Orban's Fidesz, Modi's BJP, Erdogan's AKP, or Bolsonaro's PSL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3813132 https://v-dem.net/media/publications/working_paper_116_final.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982108076524048435/luhrman2021.pdf
L hrmann Medzihorsky Lindberg 2021: this results from the fact that the Republican Party's rhetoric and policy positions have shown increasingly lack of commitment to democracy, disrespect of minority rights, demonization of opponents, and encouragement of violence:
L hrmann Medzihorsky Lindberg 2021: this results from the fact that the Republican Party's rhetoric and policy positions have shown increasingly lack of commitment to democracy, disrespect of minority rights, demonization of opponents, and encouragement of violence:: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3813132 https://v-dem.net/media/publications/working_paper_116_final.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982108076524048435/luhrman2021.pdf
L hrmann Medzihorsky Lindberg 2021: anti-pluralist rhetoric and policy positions strongly correlate with anti-democratic actions; anti-pluralist party rule correlates with a 4.8x higher risk (6% vs 29%) of reduced V-DEM democracy score
L hrmann Medzihorsky Lindberg 2021: anti-pluralist rhetoric and policy positions strongly correlate with anti-democratic actions; anti-pluralist party rule correlates with a 4.8x higher risk (6% vs 29%) of reduced V-DEM democracy score: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3813132 https://v-dem.net/media/publications/working_paper_116_final.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982108076524048435/luhrman2021.pdf
Democratic Rhetoric: Has Moved Leftward
Chinoy 2019: the Democratic Party's manifesto's rhetoric has moved leftward over time
^ citation for above: Manifesto Project
^ citation for above: Manifesto Project: https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu/
Relevant Scotus Cases
in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold that an independent districting comission was constitutional
in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold that an independent districting comission was constitutional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_Legislature_v._Arizona_Independent_Redistricting_Commission
in 2014, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to eliminate key provisions of the Voting Rights Act
in 2014, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to eliminate key provisions of the Voting Rights Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder
Republicans Use Voter Id to Disenfranchise Their Opponents
voter ID laws suppress Democratic and liberal votes
north carolina
Republicans Refuse to Implement Referenda
republicans have overturned referenda
pre-emptively overturning ballot referendum in michigan
pre-emptively overturning ballot referendum in michigan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27JL-cduuvA
overturning medicaid expansion in utah
Republicans Attempt to Reduce Incoming Dem Governor's Powers
republicans grabbed power in Michigan
republicans grabbed power in Wisconsin
republicans have grabbed power all over
Support in Polls
Marist: US capitol break-in support: 18% Republicans (7% strongly), 7% Independents (3% strongly), 3% Democrats (1% strongly)
Marist: US capitol break-in support: 18% Republicans (7% strongly), 7% Independents (3% strongly), 3% Democrats (1% strongly): https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/most-americans-blame-trump-for-capitol-attack-but-are-split-on-his-removal http://maristpoll.marist.edu/pbs-newshour-marist-poll-results-insurrection-at-the-capitol/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/798273902941044806/PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_202101081001.pdf 7 January, n=831, landline and mobile
Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the process of certifying the results of the presidential election that showed Joe Biden won. From what you ve read or heard, do you strongly support, support, oppose, or strongly oppose the actions of the Trump supporters who broke into the U.S. Capitol?
Ipsos: US capitol break-in support: 15% Republicans, 3% Independents or Other, 1% Democrats
YouGov: US capitol stormed: 45% Republicans (29% strongly), 21% Independents (15% strongly), 2% Democrats (1% strongly)
white house lied about Ukraine
scrape from this video
read these
read these
Not Sure Why These Are Important, but I Have Them So :Shrug:
timeline from OMB
timeline from OMB: https://www.axios.com/ukraine-aid-frozen-soon-after-trump-zelensky-call-5d08ff98-3fb8-44f5-b08d-d76727986990.html "The Office of Management and Budget is pushing back on suggestions that an email requesting the Pentagon withhold military aid to Ukraine 91 minutes after President Trump's phone call with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky was anything other than procedural."
Trump thinks there's something suspicious about the DNC server and Ukraine
Trump thinks there's something suspicious about the DNC server and Ukraine: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-admits-to-ukraine-military-aid-quid-pro-quo-tv-2019-11 "
Trump: They have the server, right, from the DNC, Democratic National Committee. The FBI went in and they told them, get out of here, we're not giving it to you. They gave the server to CrowdStrike or whatever it's called, which is a country which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian. And I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI's never gotten that server. That's a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?
Doocy: Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?
Trump: Well, that's what the word is. That's what I asked, actually, in my phone call [referring to his July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that's the focus of the whistleblower complaint that sparked the impeachment inquiry.] I mean, I asked it very point-blank, because we're looking for corruption. There's tremendous corruption. Why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there's this kind of corruption?
Polls
a majority of Americans (52.3% to 42.0%, +10.3%) support the impeachment process
a majority of Americans (52.3% to 42.0%, +10.3%) support the impeachment process: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/
a majority of Americans (50.3% to 46.0%, +4.3%) support removing Trump from office
a majority of Americans (50.3% to 46.0%, +4.3%) support removing Trump from office: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/
watergate reduced public support for Nixon, who had approval ratings in the 50's-70's beforehand
Substance: Constitution
article 1 section 2 paragraph 5: "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers;and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment."
article 1 section 2 paragraph 5: "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers;and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment." https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/762
article 1 section 3 paragraphs 6-7: "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."
article 1 section 3 paragraphs 6-7: "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law." https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/765
article 2 section 4: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
article 2 section 4: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-ii/clauses/349
Substance: Kurt Volker [Unformatted]
Volker testified that he introduced Giuliani to Ukranian leadership
Volker testified that he introduced Giuliani to Ukranian leadership: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-kurt-volkers-full-testimony-in-the-trump-impeachment-inquiry https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2019/11/Volkertestimony.pdf
After sharing my concerns with the Ukrainian leadership, an adviser to Presjdent Zelensky asked me to connect him to the President's personal lawyer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani. I did so. I did so solely because I understood that the new Ukrainian leadershi wanted to convince those, like Mayor Giu1iani, who believed such a negative narrative about Ukraine, that times have changed and that, under Presjdent Zelensky, Ukraine is worthy of U.S. support. I also made clear to the Ukrainians on a number of occasions that Mayor Giuliani is a private citizen and the President's personal lawyer and that he does not represent the United States Government.
Giuliani in May 2019
Giuliani in May 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/us/politics/giuliani-ukraine-trump.html http://archive.is/X1hlP
We're not meddling in an election, we're meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do. There's nothing illegal about it. Somebody could say it's improper. And this isn't foreign policy I'm asking them to do an investigation that they're doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I'm going to give them reasons why they shouldn't stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.
Volker text messages
Substance: Gordon Sondland [Unformatted]
Sondland donated 1 million dollars to the Trump inauguration
Sondland donated 1 million dollars to the Trump inauguration: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/meet-the-gop-megadonor-at-center-ukraine-scandal-sondland/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/04/250-donors-shelled-out-100k-or-more-for-trumps-inauguration/
Gordon Sondland, the chairman of Provenance Hotels and a big supporter of the extended Bush family (including former President George W.), gave $1 million to the inaugural committee through four LLCs: BV-2 LLC, Dunson Cornerstone LLC, Buena Vista Investments LLC, and Dunson Investments LLC. Sondland gave $2,700 to the early favorite to capture the GOP nomination, Jeb Bush, and $22,000 to Bush s super PAC, Right to Rise, last cycle, but none to Trump.
Trump claims he "hardly knows" Gordon Sondland
Substance: Fiona Hill
Fiona Hill quote
Fiona Hill quote: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-transcript-of-fiona-hills-full-testimony-in-the-impeachment-probe https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2019/11/FionaHill-compressed.pdf
And Ambassador Sondland, in front of the Ukrainians, as I came in, was talking about how he had an agreement wjth Chief of Staff Mulvaney for a meeting with the Ukrainians if they were going to go forward with investigations. And my director for Ukraine was looking completely alarmed. And I came in again as this discussion was underway. Mr. Danylyuk looked very alarmed as well. He didn't look like he knew what was going on. That wasn't the case with Yermak.
Substance: Crowdstrike
the GOP also used Crowdstrike
Definitions
bribery
bribery: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/201 (b) **Whoever ** (2) **being a public official** or person selected to be a public official, **directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for:** (A) **being influenced in the performance of any official act;** (B)being influenced to commit or aid in committing, or to collude in, or allow, any fraud, or make opportunity for the commission of any fraud, on the United States; or (C) being induced to do or omit to do any act in violation of the official duty of such official or person;
SCOTUS ruling on 18 USC 201
Substance: 25 July 2019 Phone Call: "Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation"
Trump talking about Crowdstrike
Trump talking about Biden
Substance: 21 April 2019 Phone Call: Rough Transcript
nothing of interest
Procedure: House Vote
CLAIM: the impeachment inquiry is invalid because the House did not vote to open it
CLAIM: the impeachment inquiry is invalid because the House did not vote to open it: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/PAC-Letter-10.08.2019.pdf
Your inquiry is constitutionally invalid and a violation of due process. In the history of our Nation, the House of Representatives has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the President without a majority of the House taking political accountability for that decision by voting to authorize such a dramatic constitutional step.
reality: the House voted 232-196 for impeachment inquiry
REALITY: House votes aren't necessary for impeachment anyways
REALITY: House votes aren't necessary for impeachment anyways: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/us/politics/fact-check-impeachment.html http://archive.is/JOwr7#selection-527.0-556.0
For example, impeachment inquiries into three federal judges in the 1980s began without explicit authorization by the full House, according to the report. While the whole House voted to start impeachment investigations into Mr. Clinton and Mr. Nixon, whether such a vote was taken in Mr. Johnson s is more ambiguous. In the second attempt to impeach the 17th president, the full House voted on and approved resolutions authorizing the Committee on Reconstruction to begin a general investigation and to obtain the evidence gathered previously by the Judiciary Committee. But those resolutions did not explicitly authorize a second impeachment inquiry. There s no requirement in the Constitution that the House do anything specific, in any order, prior to voting to approve articles of impeachment, said Stephen Vladek, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas.
Procedure: Judiciary Committee
CLAIM: impeachments inquiries must be conducted by the House Judiciary committee
CLAIM: impeachments inquiries must be conducted by the House Judiciary committee: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/06/ratcliffe_doj_inspector_generals_report_on_fisa_abuse_during_2016_election_will_be_released_friday.html
In the 240-plus years of our history, those rare times where we have had impeachment process, it s always gone through the House Judiciary Committee, because the House Judiciary Committee is the committee of jurisdiction over the Constitution and over impeachment. It s not the Intelligence Committee.
REALITY: impeachment inquiries need not be conducted by the House Judiciary committee -- indeed, several impeachments predate the House Judiciary committee
REALITY: impeachment inquiries need not be conducted by the House Judiciary committee -- indeed, several impeachments predate the House Judiciary committee: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/us/politics/fact-check-impeachment.html http://archive.is/JOwr7#selection-443.85-471.1 But while impeachment inquiries have been typically conducted by the House Judiciary Committee since its formation in 1813, there is no rule mandating it and there is precedent for other committees taking the lead. Special committees began impeachment inquiries against federal judges in 1804, 1808 and 1839. And in 1867, after the Judiciary Committee voted to not send articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson to the full House, a second attempt to impeach him succeeded after an inquiry by the Committee on Reconstruction.
Procedure: Trial Rights
CLAIM: the impeachment inquiry was invalid because the President wasn't able to cross-examine witnesses, call witnesses, and otherwise defend himself, as in a trial
CLAIM: the impeachment inquiry was invalid because the President wasn't able to cross-examine witnesses, call witnesses, and otherwise defend himself, as in a trial: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/PAC-Letter-10.08.2019.pdf
Yet the Committees have decided to deny the President these elementary rights and protections that form the basis of the American justice system and are protected by the Constitution. No citizen - including the President - should be treated this unfairly.
To comply with the Constitution's demands, appropriate procedures would include-at a minimum-the right to see all evidence, to present evidence, to call witnesses, to have counsel present at all hearings, to cross-examine all witnesses, to make objections relating to the examination of witnesses or the admissibility of testimony and evidence, and to respond to evidence and testimony. Likewise, the Committees must provide for the disclosure of all evidence favorable to the President and all evidence bearing on the credibility of witnesses called to testify in the inquiry. The Committees' current procedures provide none of these basic constitutional rights.
REALITY: the House investigates and charges people (which doesn't require these rights), while the Senate tries them (which does)
REALITY: the House investigates and charges people (which doesn't require these rights), while the Senate tries them (which does): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/us/politics/fact-check-impeachment.html http://archive.is/JOwr7#selection-587.0-606.0
This argument which featured prominently in Mr. Cipollone s letter and has been echoed by other defenders of Mr. Trump misrepresents the separation of duties in Congress in regards to the impeachment process: The House investigates and charges, and the Senate holds trial. Allowing the subject of an impeachment inquiry to call witnesses or present counterevidence is not required in either the Constitution or House rules. The House Judiciary Committee did hear testimony from the White House counsel at the request of the Clinton administration in 1998 and allowed Mr. Nixon s defense lawyers to present rebutting evidence in 1974. But no such accommodation was made in Mr. Johnson s case, who was impeached by the House before it even drew up articles of impeachment.
REALITY: the Senate's rules make clear that the President can access all of these rights in their Senate trial
REALITY: the Senate's rules make clear that the President can access all of these rights in their Senate trial: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SMAN-113/pdf/SMAN-113-pg223.pdf https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/3_1986SenatesImpeachmentRules.pdf eg:
XVII. Witnesses shall be examined by one person on be- 186 half of the party producing them, and then cross-examined by one person on the other side.
Procedure: Secret Hearings
1/4 of Republicans (those on Intelligence, Oversight or Foreign Affairs) can attend the hearings, about as many as Democrats -- and 1/4 of the Republicans doing the sit-in against the impeachment inquiry hearing could attend the hearings
1/4 of Republicans (those on Intelligence, Oversight or Foreign Affairs) can attend the hearings, about as many as Democrats -- and 1/4 of the Republicans doing the sit-in against the impeachment inquiry hearing could attend the hearings: http://web.archive.org/web/20191023235818/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/23/heres-why-matt-gaetz-sit-in-stunt-was-particularly-weird/
it was indeed a security issue
Procedure: Whistleblower's Testimony
the whistleblower only gave written testimony -- as has Trump:
the whistleblower only gave written testimony -- as has Trump:
Goalposts: Lindsey Graham
01 January 1999
01 January 1999: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lindsey-graham-crime-impeach/ https://www.c-span.org/video/?118439-1/senate-session&start=611 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxJoKu13nLU
And we got some guidance as to what really is in or out of bounds for high government officials. What's a high crime? How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means. It's not very scholarly. But I think it's the truth. I think that's what they meant by high crimes. Doesn't even have to be a crime. It's just when you start using your office and you're acting in a way that hurts people. You've committed a high crime.
20 October 2019
20 October 2019: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/10/20/graham-open-minded-to-trump-impeachment-if-evidence-arises-nr-vpx.cnn https://www.axios.com/deaths-vaping-lung-illness-b6af29af-0078-44f8-ae87-5ecfcf12b3a4.html
Sure. I mean, show me something that, that is a crime. If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing.
25 September 2019
Intentions
free speech is specifically used to defend racist speech, rather than general freedom of speech
free speech btw: 43% of Republicans think the President should be able to "close news outlets engaged in bad behavior"
smarter people are more likely to defend free speech at all costs
smarter people are more likely to defend free speech at all costs: http://www.razib.com/wordpress/?cat=56
Left v Right
those who won't live near or be friends with people with different political views are more common among conservatives than liberals
those who won't live near or be friends with people with different political views are more common among conservatives than liberals: http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/24/political-typology-reveals-deep-fissures-on-the-right-and-left/
Trends
youth are not more likely to support banning speech
modern students are just as likely to support the first amendment
modern students are just as likely to support free speech
the difference between liberals and conservatives in self-censorship is smaller on-campus than off-campus
the difference between liberals and conservatives in self-censorship is smaller on-campus than off-campus: https://niskanencenter.org/blog/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-crisis-a-close-look-at-the-evidence/
Anti-Leftist Censorships
liberal faculty are more likely to be fired than conservative faculty
William Pryor
2004: Kavanaugh claimed that the nomination of judge William Pryor was "not one that I worked on personally". Transcript
2004: Kavanaugh claimed that the nomination of judge William Pryor was "not one that I worked on personally". Transcript: https://www.congress.gov/108/chrg/shrg24853/CHRG-108shrg24853.htm Video: https://twitter.com/SenatorLeahy/status/1037788199463084033
Emails show Kavanaugh was involved in selecting, interviewing, and confirming Pryor
Kavanaugh was included (at least initially) in the "Pryor Working Group Contact List"
Kavanaugh was included (at least initially) in the "Pryor Working Group Contact List":
11 December 2002: Kavanaugh asked Adam Charnes to speak with Pryor about nominating him to CA11
11 December 2002: Kavanaugh asked Adam Charnes to speak with Pryor about nominating him to CA11:
16 December 2002: Kavanaugh received an email from another White House aide Kyle Sampson with subject line "CA11" (ie, the 11th Circuit) that asked "How did the Pryor interview go?" Kavanaugh responded: "Call me."
16 December 2002: Kavanaugh received an email from another White House aide Kyle Sampson with subject line "CA11" (ie, the 11th Circuit) that asked "How did the Pryor interview go?" Kavanaugh responded: "Call me."
05 June 2003: Kavanaugh was included on an email chain with a handful of other officials about a 4 p.m. conference call to "discuss Pryor and coordinate plans and efforts"
05 June 2003: Kavanaugh was included on an email chain with a handful of other officials about a 4 p.m. conference call to "discuss Pryor and coordinate plans and efforts":
05 June 2003: Kavanaugh was included on an email about a meeting tomorrow to "discuss nominee Bill Pryor s hearing" on next Wednesday
05 June 2003: Kavanaugh was included on an email about a meeting tomorrow to "discuss nominee Bill Pryor s hearing" on next Wednesday:
Remirez Discussions
Kavanaugh testified that he never "discussed or heard discussion" about the Deborah Ramirez incident before the 23 September 2018 New Yorker article
Kavanaugh testified that he never "discussed or heard discussion" about the Deborah Ramirez incident before the 23 September 2018 New Yorker article: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/09.25.18%20BMK%20Interview%20Transcript%20(Redacted)..pdf
Kavanaugh associate testifies that Kavanaugh may have participated in pre-emptive PR meetings before the incident became public
Kavanaugh associate testifies that Kavanaugh may have participated in pre-emptive PR meetings before the incident became public: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/mutual-friend-ramirez-kavanaugh-anxious-come-forward-evidence-n915566 Berchem says in her memo that Kavanaugh "and/or" his friends "may have initiated an anticipatory narrative" as early as July to "conceal or discredit" Ramirez. Yarasavage said that she corresponded with "Brett s guy". Yarasavage said that she sent a copy of a photo from a 1997 wedding attended by Kavanaugh and Ramirez "to Brett s team" in order to show himself smiling alongside Ramirez 10 years after they graduated.
Extreme
Garland is a left-centrist
Kavanaugh is a rightist
Kavanaugh is a rightist
Drone Strikes: Civilian Death Rate
BIJ: my graph of death rate per strike, comparison btwn drone and "other" (virtually all manned airplane airstrikes)
BIJ: my graph of death rate per strike, comparison btwn drone and "other" (virtually all manned airplane airstrikes): https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-01/drone-wars-the-full-data
Drone Strikes: Civilian Death Rate (Published Graphs)
drone strikes in Pakistan have a low civilian death rate (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, New America Foundation)
drone strikes in Pakistan have a low civilian death rate (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, New America Foundation): https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a599423.pdf
drone strikes in Pakistan have a low civilian death rate (New American Foundation, Long War Journal, University of Massachusetts DRONE databses)
drone strikes in Pakistan have a low civilian death rate (New American Foundation, Long War Journal, University of Massachusetts DRONE databses): https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/26298539.pdf average 21.37% in 2008, 15.00% in 2009, 2.74% in 2010, 5.68% in 2011
data from press accounts of drone strike deaths, 2004-2010, shows 32% civilian death rate (New America Foundation)
data from press accounts of drone strike deaths, 2004-2010, shows 32% civilian death rate (New America Foundation): http://chrisherwig.org/data-src/pdf/f2f94dd4-53b7-11e2-b73e-5c969d8d366f-the-year-of-the-drone-newamerica-net.pdf Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to the present have killed between 830 and 1,210 individuals, of whom around 550 to 850 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent. Averaging the press reports in 2009 indicates that 502 people were killed, 382 of whom were described as militants, for an average civilian fatality rate of 24 percent.
drone strike data is highly unreliable
Drone Strikes: Anti-Terrorism Efficacy
drone strikes in Pakistan have a positive correlation with terrorism within a week and a negative correlation with terrorism after the first week
drone strikes in Pakistan have a positive correlation with terrorism within a week and a negative correlation with terrorism after the first week: https://academic.oup.com/cesifo/article/64/4/667/4996288
We find that there is little significant impact of drone strikes on Taliban attacks in Afghanistan but that there is a significant impact of drone strikes on Taliban attacks in Pakistan. This impact varies from a positive vengeance effect in the first week following a drone strike to a negative deterrent/incapacitation effect in the second week following a drone strike, when we examine the incidence of terrorist attacks by the Taliban.
We find that a terrorist attack in Pakistan is 17.7% less likely to occur 3 days after a successful drone strike. At the same time we find that a terrorist attack is 9.7 and 7.5% more likely to occur five and 6 days after an unsuccessful drone strike, and that a terrorist attack is 7.5 and 8.7% less likely to occur 12 and 13 days after an unsuccessful drone strike. There are 0.283 fewer terrorist attacks in Pakistan 15 days after a successful drone strike, 0.099 more terrorist attacks in Pakistan 6 days after an unsuccessful drone strike, and 0.121 fewer terrorist attacks in Pakistan 12 days after an unsuccessful drone strike (all else constant). These effects are statistically significant. Because all of the statistically significant coefficients on successful drone strikes are negative, it appears that there is an incapacitation effect of the Taliban due to a lost militant leader.
1965 Civil Rights Act Vote
in both the former USA and former CSA, Democrats were more likely to support the 1965 civil rights act
in both the former USA and former CSA, Democrats were more likely to support the 1965 civil rights act: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s78 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h87
^ historian's summary of above point
Representation
since 1965, white Republican representatives dominated Southern GOP representation -- while Democratic representatives became increasingly nonwhite
since 1965, white Republican representatives dominated Southern GOP representation -- while Democratic representatives became increasingly nonwhite: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2010/11/11/the-long-goodbye
South Switch Dem to Rep
Bump 2017: since 1942, the Deep South shifted dramatically more Republican (from +60% Democrat to +20% Republican)
Bump 2017: since the 1940's, the Deep South's representation in Congress systematically trended towards conservatism, according to VoteView data
Black Switch Dem to Rep
Bump 2015: between 1936 and 1972, the Black Democratic vote increased from 70% to 90%; the white vote and especially the Deep South vote declined
Bump 2015: between 1936 and 1972, the Black Democratic vote increased from 70% to 90%; the white vote and especially the Deep South vote declined: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/07/when-did-black-americans-start-voting-so-heavily-democratic/
Quotes
MLK on Goldwater and the rising racism of the GOP
MLK on Goldwater and the rising racism of the GOP: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/chapter-23-mississippi-challenge
On the urgent issue of civil rights, Senator Goldwater represented a philosophy that was morally indefensible and socially suicidal. While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulated a philosophy which gave aid and comfort to the racist. His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele
RNC Chairman Michael Steele: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/how-trump-remixed-the-republican-southern-strategy/495719/
For the last 40-plus years we had a "Southern strategy" that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, "Bubba" went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.
Nixon political strategist Kevin Phillips
Nixon political strategist Kevin Phillips: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillips-southern.pdf
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.
Reagan and Bush I strategist Lee Atwater
Reagan and Bush I strategist Lee Atwater: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater "
You start out in 1954 by saying, "N****r, n****r, n****r." By 1968 you can't say "n****r" that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "n****r, n****r.
Lost Cause
slaveowners were highly overrepresented in Lee's army
Polling
confederacy
causes of civil war
Nondemocratic: Sham 2007 Presidential
the 2007 Syrian election was a referendum, not an election -- Assad had no opponents
the 2007 Syrian election was a referendum, not an election -- Assad had no opponents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Syrian_presidential_election
this is roughly comparable to the "elections" of the Italian fascist party
this is roughly comparable to the "elections" of the Italian fascist party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Italian_general_election
Nondemocratic: Sham 2014 Presidential
the 2014 Syrian election results summaries were accurate *to the voter*, suggesting the results were arrived at first, then the number of voters who voted for each candidate
the 2014 Syrian election results summaries were accurate *to the voter*, suggesting the results were arrived at first, then the number of voters who voted for each candidate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Syrian_presidential_election Andrew Gelman suggested that the results could be fabricated based on the unlikely accurate numbers.[48] For example, 10,319,723/11,634,412 = 0.886999962, so the 88.7% number for Bashar al-Assad is correct to the nearest single voter. Similarly, the proportion for NIACS comes out at 0.042999938 and for the Independent party at 0.031999985. But whilst Gelman's argument provides evidence that the published counts were fabricated, he admits that it does not preclude the theory that those numbers could have been generated retrospectively (and unprofessionally) from valid percentages. The proportion reported for turnout, 0.734237287, does not exhibit the unusual property found in the vote counts.
Nondemocratic: Sham Parliamentary Elections
2007
2012
2016
Not Socialist: Assad Literally Dropped Socialism From the Constitution
1973 constitution
2012 constitution
War Crimes: Civilian Deaths
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (pro-opposition group): from 2011 March 15 to 2021 May 30, the Syrian regime ruled by Assad killed 130254 civilians, or 81.5% = 130254/159774 of all civilian deaths
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (pro-opposition group): from 2011 March 15 to 2021 May 30, the Syrian regime ruled by Assad killed 130254 civilians, or 81.5% = 130254/159774 of all civilian deaths: https://www.syriahr.com/en/217360/ https://archive.fo/wip/Pw8P4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/946943638607364146/sohr2021.pdf Assad: 56358+26408+47488=130254
^ wiki
Syrian Network for Human Rights (pro-opposition group): from March 2011 to June 2021, the Syrian regime ruled by Assad killed 200117 civilians, or 87.9% = 200117/227781 of all civilian deaths
Syrian Network for Human Rights (pro-opposition group): from March 2011 to June 2021, the Syrian regime ruled by Assad killed 200117 civilians, or 87.9% = 200117/227781 of all civilian deaths: https://sn4hr.org/blog/2021/06/14/civilian-death-toll/
^ wiki
Violence Documentation Center in Syria 2020 (pro-opposition group): from March 2011 to September 2020, the Syrian regime ruled by Assad killed 110779 civilians, or 82.0% = 110779/135163 of all civilian deaths
Violence Documentation Center in Syria 2020 (pro-opposition group): from March 2011 to September 2020, the Syrian regime ruled by Assad killed 110779 civilians, or 82.0% = 110779/135163 of all civilian deaths: https://vdc-sy.net/monthly-statistical-report-casualties-syria-september-2020/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/878453980085248011/Monthly_Stat_Rep_SEP20_EN.pdf 135163 = 110779+3089+6860+2772+218+4930+4802+643+1070
^ wiki
War Crimes: Confirmed and Unconfirmed Chemical Attacks
TLDR: Confirmed: 2013 Khan al-Assal (Syrian government), 2013 Ghouta (Syrian government) Syrian government: 19 March 2013 Khan al-Assal: UN found sufficient evidence for sarin use (numerous eyewitness reports) but could not obtain environmental or blood samples and could not evaluate munitions
Syrian government: 19 March 2013 Khan al-Assal: UN found sufficient evidence for sarin use (numerous eyewitness reports) but could not obtain environmental or blood samples and could not evaluate munitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_al-Assal_chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Mission_to_Investigate_Alleged_Uses_of_Chemical_Weapons_in_the_Syrian_Arab_Republic https://undocs.org/A/68/663 Due to the deteriorating security situation, the United Nations Mission was not able to conduct an on-site visit to Khan Al Asal and therefore was not in a position to collect primary evidence relating to the number or type of munitions and/or delivery system that was used in the incident. [....] Due to the deteriorating security situation, the United Nations Mission was not able to conduct an on-site visit to Khan Al Asal and therefore was not in a position to collect environmental samples. In addition, six months following the incident, the probative value of such samples would be negligible. The Russian Federation presented the United Nations Mission with its own report relying on environmental samples collected by a Russian investigation team, which found remainders of Sarin. The United Nations Mission studied the report but could not independently verify the chain of custody for the sampling and the transport of the samples. [....] The United Nations Mission applied the standards for epidemiologic determination of cause-and-effect and assessed that an organophosphorous intoxication was the cause of the rapidly onsetting mass intoxication taking place on the morning of the 19 March 2013. Based on its interviews and the assessment of the medical records obtained from five hospitals receiving the alleged victims, the United Nations Mission did not determine any alternative explanations for the symptoms.
Unknown: 13 April 2013 Sheikh Maqsood: UN could not obtain environmental or blood samples
Unknown: 13 April 2013 Sheikh Maqsood: UN could not obtain environmental or blood samples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War_(January%E2%80%93April_2013)#13_April https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Mission_to_Investigate_Alleged_Uses_of_Chemical_Weapons_in_the_Syrian_Arab_Republic https://undocs.org/A/68/663 The United Nations Mission sought to conduct fact-finding activities pertaining to this incident from the territory of a bordering country, having determined that such an investigation held the prospect of producing additional information. The United Nations Mission was ultimately unable to obtain any such information.
Unknown: 29 April 2013 Saraqueb: UN could not obtain environmental or blood samples
Unknown: 29 April 2013 Saraqueb: UN could not obtain environmental or blood samples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraqib_chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Mission_to_Investigate_Alleged_Uses_of_Chemical_Weapons_in_the_Syrian_Arab_Republic https://undocs.org/A/68/663 The United Nations Mission was not able to conduct an on-site visit and therefore was not able to collect any environmental samples. The French Government presented a report containing results of environmental samples testing positive for Sarin. The United Nations Mission studied the report but could not independently verify the chain of custody for the sampling and the transport of the samples.
Syrian government: 21 August 2013 Ghouta: UN found sufficient evidence for sarin use (environmental samples 2x, blood samples, eyewitness reports) from surface-to-surface rockets with sufficient quality that the perpetrator must have had access to the Syrian military's chemical weapons stockpile
Syrian government: 21 August 2013 Ghouta: UN found sufficient evidence for sarin use (environmental samples 2x, blood samples, eyewitness reports) from surface-to-surface rockets with sufficient quality that the perpetrator must have had access to the Syrian military's chemical weapons stockpile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouta_chemical_attack https://undocs.org/A/67/997 [O]n 21 August 2013, chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic, also against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale. In particular, the environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were used in Ein Tarma, Moadamiyah and Zamalka in the Ghouta area of Damascus. [....] Close to the rocket impact sites, in the area where patients were affected, the environment was found to be contaminated by Sarin. https://undocs.org/A/68/663 The final laboratory results on environmental samples from Ghouta (Moadamiyah and Zamalka) are published below (see table 5.1). The results further support the conclusion of the earlier report (A/67/997-S/2013/553), improving the consistency between the results of the two laboratories. https://www.refworld.org/docid/53182eed4.html The evidence available concerning the nature, quality and quantity of the agents used on 21 August indicated that the perpetrators likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military, as well as the expertise and equipment necessary to manipulate safely large amount of chemical agents. Concerning the incident in Khan Al-Assal on 19 March, the chemical agents used in that attack bore the same unique hallmarks as those used in Al-Ghouta.
Not chemical weapons: 22 August 2013 Bahhariyeh: UN found sufficient evidence against chemical weapon use (blood samples)
Not chemical weapons: 22 August 2013 Bahhariyeh: UN found sufficient evidence against chemical weapon use (blood samples): https://undocs.org/A/67/997 The United Nations Mission was not able to conduct an on-site visit and was therefore not able to collect any environmental samples. [....] Blood and urine samples were collected from the most severely intoxicated patients. The analysis results tested negative for any of the chemical warfare agents.
Unknown: 24 August 2013 Jobar
Unknown: 24 August 2013 Jobar: https://undocs.org/A/68/663 UN found sufficient evidence for sarin use (blood samples x2, eyewitness reports) but could not evaluate munitions: While the United Nations Mission visited the site, it found the site to have been corrupted by mine-clearing activities. As such, there was no probative value in collecting samples. The Syrian Government allegedly recovered soil samples from the impact site that tested positive for Sarin. The United Nations Mission could not verify the chain of custody for this sampling and subsequent analysis. [....] The United Nations Mission was given four samples reportedly withdrawn by the Syrian Government on 24 August 2013 upon the victims arrival to the hospital, which were all positive for Sarin exposure. The United Nations Mission collected four blood samples on 28 September 2013, one of which tested positive for Sarin exposure. All samples were subjected to DNA testing to confirm the origin of the presented whole blood samples. The analyses confirmed that the four samples provided by the Syrian Government matched those of the four alleged victims interviewed and sampled. The medical records received from Martyr Yusuf Al Azmah Military Hospital provided corroborating evidence of cholinesterase inhibition indicating Sarin exposure in two of the four patients.
Unknown: 25 August 2013 Ashrafiah Sahnaya: UN found sufficient evidence for sarin use (blood samples x2) but could not evaluate munitions
Unknown: 25 August 2013 Ashrafiah Sahnaya: UN found sufficient evidence for sarin use (blood samples x2) but could not evaluate munitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Mission_to_Investigate_Alleged_Uses_of_Chemical_Weapons_in_the_Syrian_Arab_Republic https://undocs.org/A/68/663 The United Nations Mission did not visit the site of the alleged incident and was therefore not in a position to collect primary information concerning the munitions. According to witnesses, a catapult allegedly threw unidentified objects aiming at the military checkpoint. [....] The United Nations Mission did not visit the site of the alleged incident and was therefore not in a position to collect environmental samples. [....] On 29 September 2013, the United Nations Mission was given five samples allegedly drawn by the Syrian Government on 25 August 2013 upon the arrival of the patients at the hospital. The United Nations Mission drew its own blood samples on 26 and 28 September 2013. 107. All samples were subjected to DNA testing to confirm the origin of the presented whole blood samples. The analyses confirmed that the samples provided by the Syrian Government matched those of the alleged victims interviewed and sampled. The five blood samples drawn on 25 August 2013 all tested positive for Sarin exposure, whereas those drawn on 26 and 28 September tested negative.
Human Rights: Pretty Good, Several War-Related Major Failings
UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria 2017: claims of ethnic cleansing by Rojava / DFNS are false, but displaced people face significant hunger, thirst, and homelessness
UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria 2017: claims of ethnic cleansing by Rojava / DFNS are false, but displaced people face significant hunger, thirst, and homelessness: http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/14032017
The Commission notes in its report that mass numbers of people were displaced during SDF offensives to oust ISIS from Manbij city in the summer of 2016 and Tishreen Dam in December 2015 and that some continue to remain unable to return to their homes, living under dire humanitarian conditions. However, the presence of concealed bombs laid by ISIL justifies ordering the temporary displacement of civilians, the Commission stated, using an alternate acronym for ISIS. While the displacement was justified, the Commission noted that the SDF and YPG failed to provide adequate assistance to the displaced families in the form of basics like shelter, food, and health care.
from 2014-2017, the most that Amnesty International could allege against Rojava (a state of 6 million in a 4-year war against ISIS, Syria, and Turkey) are: one forced population movement, one unjustified bulldozing of a village, several unjustified arrests of journalists, and incomplete due process in the courts
Internal Structure
discussion of the structures of communes in Rojava
Criminal Justice: Fairly Progressive
Rojava has a very low reported incarceration rate
Rojava has a very low reported incarceration rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Federation_of_Northern_Syria
A new criminal justice approach was implemented that emphasizes restoration over retribution.[134] The death penalty was abolished.[135] Prisons house mostly people charged with terrorist activity related to ISIL and other extremist groups.[136] A **September 2015 report of Amnesty International noted that 400 people were incarcerated[137] of a population of 4.6 million, or 8.7 people per 100,000, compared to 60.0 people per 100,000 in Syria as a whole, and the second lowest rate in the world after San Marino.[3][138]** However, the report also noted some deficiencies in due process.[137]
LGBT Rights: Unclear, Need Stronger Evidence
article discussing strengths of lgbt rights in Rojava
article discussing strengths of lgbt rights in Rojava
article discussing strengths of lgbt rights in Rojava
article discussing weaknesses of lgbt rights in Rojava
article discussing weaknesses of lgbt rights in Rojava
article discussing weaknesses of lgbt rights in Rojava
Iraq War Was Illegal
TODO that jstor
9/11 and the Axis of Evil
George Bush, 29 January 2002, includes Iraq in the axis of evil that will export terror like 9/11
George Bush, 29 January 2002, includes Iraq in the axis of evil that will export terror like 9/11: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-congress-the-state-the-union-22 **Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th, but we know their true nature.** North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. **Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.** States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
George Bush, 07 October 2002, alleges Iraq could harbor Al-Qaeda in the future
George Bush, 07 October 2002, alleges Iraq could harbor Al-Qaeda in the future: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints. Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary; confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. When I spoke to Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. And he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terror network.
relevant quotes from Senate Reports Nos. 330-331
Timeline
background: the OFFP program was administered by the Hussein gov't in south and central Iraq and by the UN in the northern Iraq (the semi-autonomous Kurdish territory)
background: the OFFP program was administered by the Hussein gov't in south and central Iraq and by the UN in the northern Iraq (the semi-autonomous Kurdish territory): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq
1990 August 06: total sanctions against Iraq began
1990 August 06: total sanctions against Iraq began
1991 April: sanctions modified to exclude foodstuffs from sanctions
1991 April: sanctions modified to exclude foodstuffs from sanctions
1996: sanctions modified to include an Oil For Food Programme (OFFP)
1996: sanctions modified to include an Oil For Food Programme (OFFP)
1996-2003: sanctions increasingly ignored
1996-2003: sanctions increasingly ignored
2003 May 22: sanctions were lifted (1 month after the successful US invasion)
2003 May 22: sanctions were lifted (1 month after the successful US invasion)
Us Failure: Child Mortality Remains High and Did Not Decrease After Invasion
Hossain et al 2021: Iraq continues to have child mortality rates in excess of its neighbords; the reasons are explored
Hossain et al 2021: Iraq continues to have child mortality rates in excess of its neighbords; the reasons are explored: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3797585
OWID: Iraq and regional child mortality rates
World Bank: Iraq and regional child mortality rates
Fabricated Evidence: Sanctions Death Toll Was Faked
Dyson and Cetorelli 2017: all three other other retrospective birth order study failed to replicate the findings of a massive spike in child mortality seen in the 1999 UNICEF survey
Dyson and Cetorelli 2017: all three other other retrospective birth order study failed to replicate the findings of a massive spike in child mortality seen in the 1999 UNICEF survey: https://gh.bmj.com/content/2/2/e000311 https://sci-hub.se/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000311 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957469620745408552/dyson2017.pdf
^ authors of the above study: Tim Dyson, demographer of India, unclear political leanings
^ authors of the above study: Tim Dyson, demographer of India, unclear political leanings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Dyson Valeria Cetorelli, UN demographer specialized in refugees and famine, unclear political leanings: https://www.lse.ac.uk/middle-east-centre/people/valeria-cetorelli
^ very shitty critique of the above study: "UNICEF staff fully responsible for the research methodology, the data analysis, and the resulting conclusions conducted the research with professionalism and without hidden agenda"
^ very shitty critique of the above study: "UNICEF staff fully responsible for the research methodology, the data analysis, and the resulting conclusions conducted the research with professionalism and without hidden agenda": https://www.gicj.org/positions-opinons/gicj-positions-and-opinions/1188-razing-the-truth-about-sanctions-against-iraq
Spagat 2010: same points as above, plus a critique of the 1995 FAO-NRI survey: "The evidence suggests that this claim should now take up its rightful place in the historical record next to Iraq s mythical weapons of mass destruction"
Spagat 2010: same points as above, plus a critique of the 1995 FAO-NRI survey: "The evidence suggests that this claim should now take up its rightful place in the historical record next to Iraq s mythical weapons of mass destruction": https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2010.00437.x https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2010.00437.x https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957484912196354068/spagat2010.pdf
^ author of above study: Michael Spagat, expert in war deaths, unclear political leanings
Ali et al 2003: the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Survey was conducted by two different authorities: the survey showed no spike after sanctions in northern Iraq, the semi-autonomous Kurdish territory (where the survey was conducted by UNICEF alone), with a medium spike during the 1991 Iraqi Civil War); the survey showed a massive spike in south & central Iraq (where the survey was conducted in cooperation between UNICEF and the Hussein gov't)
Ali et al 2003: the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Survey was conducted by two different authorities: the survey showed no spike after sanctions in northern Iraq, the semi-autonomous Kurdish territory (where the survey was conducted by UNICEF alone), with a medium spike during the 1991 Iraqi Civil War); the survey showed a massive spike in south & central Iraq (where the survey was conducted in cooperation between UNICEF and the Hussein gov't): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0032472032000097119 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/0032472032000097119 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957486576554885200/ali2003.pdf
Iran Deal: Jcpoa Goals
stockpiles reduction
enrichment reduction
centrifuge reduction
Iran Deal: Military Sites
inspection of military sites is possible but somewhat delayed
inspection of military sites is possible but somewhat delayed: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/13/549217764/should-nuclear-inspectors-be-demanding-access-to-irans-military-sites Under something called the Additional Protocol, which Iran accepted as part of the JCPOA, inspectors can request access to undeclared sites, including military sites. But the agreement spells out a series of steps to gain that access that could take as long as 24 days to complete.
more importantly, we can literally just detect the radiation
more importantly, we can literally just detect the radiation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txQwHFeeDtM
Iran Deal: Didn't Pass the Senate
the jcpoa is a "political commitment", which is nonbinding and does not require a 2/3 approval in the senate; it is not a "treaty" or "executive agreement". in 2015, Congress passed a law demanding review on the Iran deal.
JCPOA legislative history, from Wikipedia
JCPOA legislative history, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action#Review_period_in_the_United_States_Congress On 19 July 2015, the State Department officially transmitted to Congress the JCPOA, its annexes, and related materials.[162] These documents included the Unclassified Verification Assessment Report on the JCPOA and the Intelligence Community's Classified Annex to the Verification Assessment Report.[162] The sixty-day review period began the next day, 20 July,[162][163][159] and ended 17 September.[164] Senator Ted Cruz introduced a resolution seeking a delay in the review period, arguing that the sixty-day congressional review under the Act should not begin until the Senate obtains a copy of all bilateral Iran-IAEA documents. This resolution did not pass.[165][166] Ultimately, a resolution of disapproval was brought to the Senate floor, but failed. A resolution of approval was brought to the House floor, but it, too, failed. As a result, the agreement went into effect following congressional review period.[167]
Senate vote
Senate vote: https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2015/sep/11/congress-votes-deal Senate: 42 for, 58 against; as long as it wasn't vetoed (67 for), the bill would become law
House vote
House vote: https://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/253370-house-rejects-iran-deal House: 162 for, 269 against; as long as it wasn't vetoed (291 for), the bill would become law
Iran Deal: Israeli Documents
the Israeli documents did not show that Iran was actively breaking the nuclear deal; they merely confirmed existence of a secret nuclear program that ended in 2004
the Israeli documents did not show that Iran was actively breaking the nuclear deal; they merely confirmed existence of a secret nuclear program that ended in 2004: https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2018/281346.htm https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/netanyahu-s-info-iran-nukes-known-u-s-intelligence-years-n870456 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/papers-stolen-in-a-daring-israeli-raid-on-tehran-archive-reveal-the-extent-of-irans-past-weapons-research/2018/07/15/0f7911c8-877c-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html [Secretary of State Michael Pompeo:] The existence of the AMAD program that ended roughly December of 2003, January of 2004, it is accurate to say that the knowledge of that has been known for the fact of that had been known for quite some time. But there are thousands of new documents and new information. We re still going through it. There s still a lot of work to do to figure out precisely the scope and scale of it. But it is the case it there is new information about that program.
Iran Deal: Heavy Water Violations
iran technically but minimally violated the JCPOA twice in 2016: it overproduced heavy water, but then shut down said heavy water production plant
iran technically but minimally violated the JCPOA twice in 2016: it overproduced heavy water, but then shut down said heavy water production plant: https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2017-07-11/p51-iran-nuclear-deal-alert-july-2017 https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/ArmsControlNow/2016-09-30/The-P5-plus-1-and-Iran-Nuclear-Deal-Alert-December-22 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-idUSKBN18T244 "The report noted that Iran had slightly exceeded the heavy-water stockpile limit of 130 metric tons set out in the deal. The report said that Iran had 130.1 metric tons Nov. 8. Iran says it has since shipped out 11 metric tons for storage in Oman."
2013 November 21: Euromaidan protests begin
2013 November 21: Euromaidan protests begin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan
2014 January 16: Ukraine parliament passes anti-protest laws
2014 January 16: Ukraine parliament passes anti-protest laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-protest_laws_in_Ukraine
2014 February 22: Yanukovych flees Ukraine
2014 February 27: Russia invades Crimea
2014 March 16: Crimean holds referendum
Good Summary Article on the Complexities From 538
FiveThirtyEight 2014: summary of polling before Crimean annexation and the difficulties/complexities of polling the issue
FiveThirtyEight 2014: summary of polling before Crimean annexation and the difficulties/complexities of polling the issue: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-signs-pointed-to-crimea-independence-vote-but-polls-didnt/
Todo Scrape Additional Polls From This Description
Polls on Crimea Before March 2014 Referendum: Razumkov
Razumkov 2008: 64% of people in Crimea supported Crimea seceding and joining Russia
Razumkov 2009: a 32% plurality chose "secede from Ukraine and join Russia", 20% chose "become Russian national autonomy as a part of Ukraine", 14% "preserve status of autonomy as a part of Ukraine with expanded rights and powers"; remainder chose "hard to say" or a minor option
Razumkov 2009: a 32% plurality chose "secede from Ukraine and join Russia", 20% chose "become Russian national autonomy as a part of Ukraine", 14% "preserve status of autonomy as a part of Ukraine with expanded rights and powers"; remainder chose "hard to say" or a minor option: https://www.razumkov.org.ua/en/edition/national-security-and-defence-journal?start=11 https://www.razumkov.org.ua/uploads/journal/eng/NSD109_2009_eng.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960266605391147089/razumkov2009.pdf
Polls on Crimea Before March 2014 Referendum: Gallup
Gallup, USAID, IRI 2011: of people in Ukraine, 49% preferred "autonomy in Ukraine as today", 33% "Crimea should be separated and given to Russia", 6% "common oblast of Ukraine", 4% "Crimean Tatar autonomy within Ukraine"
Gallup, USAID, IRI 2013: of people in Ukraine, 53% preferred "autonomy in Ukraine as today", 23% "Crimea should be separated and given to Russia", 12% "Crimean Tatar autonomy within Ukraine", 2% "common oblast of Ukraine"
Polls on Crimea Before March 2014 Referendum: Undp
UNDP 2009 Q3: 9% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 46% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 70% would vote in favor and 14% would vote against
UNDP 2009 Q3: 9% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 46% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 70% would vote in favor and 14% would vote against: https://web.archive.org/web/20140502000238/http://www.undp.crimea.ua/img/content/file/monitoring_ru_2009_10-12.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960277815884931162/undp2009.pdf
UNDP 2009 Q4, 10% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 43% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 7% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 67% would vote in favor and 15% would vote against
UNDP 2009 Q4, 10% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 43% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 7% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 67% would vote in favor and 15% would vote against: https://web.archive.org/web/20140502000238/http://www.undp.crimea.ua/img/content/file/monitoring_ru_2009_10-12.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960277815884931162/undp2009.pdf
UNDP 2010 Q1: 10% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 33% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 7% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 66% would vote in favor and 14% would vote against
UNDP 2010 Q1: 10% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 33% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 7% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 66% would vote in favor and 14% would vote against: https://web.archive.org/web/20140415042714/http://www.undp.crimea.ua/img/content/file/monitoring_ru_2010_10-12.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960277816333713458/undp2010.pdf
UNDP 2010 Q2: 10% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 31% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 65% would vote in favor and 12% would vote against
UNDP 2010 Q2: 10% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 31% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 65% would vote in favor and 12% would vote against: https://web.archive.org/web/20140415042714/http://www.undp.crimea.ua/img/content/file/monitoring_ru_2010_10-12.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960277816333713458/undp2010.pdf
UNDP 2010 Q3: 8% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 48% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 67% would vote in favor and 11% would vote against
UNDP 2010 Q3: 8% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 48% an autonomous subject of Russia, 24% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 67% would vote in favor and 11% would vote against: https://web.archive.org/web/20140415042714/http://www.undp.crimea.ua/img/content/file/monitoring_ru_2010_10-12.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960277816333713458/undp2010.pdf
UNDP 2010 Q4: 7% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 45% an autonomous subject of Russia, 28% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 5% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 66% would vote in favor and 9% would vote against
UNDP 2010 Q4: 7% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 45% an autonomous subject of Russia, 28% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 9% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 5% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 66% would vote in favor and 9% would vote against: https://web.archive.org/web/20140415042714/http://www.undp.crimea.ua/img/content/file/monitoring_ru_2010_10-12.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960277816333713458/undp2010.pdf
UNDP 2011 Q4: 11% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 41% an autonomous subject of Russia, 19% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 12% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 66% would vote in favor and 14% would vote against
UNDP 2011 Q4: 11% of people in Crimea thought Crimea should be an independent state, 41% an autonomous subject of Russia, 19% a subject of Ukraine with extended powers, 12% a subject of Ukraine with similar powers, and 6% a common oblast of Ukraine; if a referendum to join Crimea and Russia were held, 66% would vote in favor and 14% would vote against: https://web.archive.org/web/20140502005021/http://www.undp.crimea.ua/img/content/Strategy%20Implementation%20Monitoring%20Report%20%28October%20to%20December%202011%29%285%29.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/960277815448731730/undp2011.pdf
Polls on Crimea Before March 2014 Referendum: Other
KIIS 2014 February 8-18: 41% of people in Crimea, 33% in Donetsk, and 24% in Luhansk said that "Ukraine and Russia must unite into a single state"
KIIS 2014 February 8-18: 41% of people in Crimea, 33% in Donetsk, and 24% in Luhansk said that "Ukraine and Russia must unite into a single state": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyiv_International_Institute_of_Sociology http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=236&page=1 https://archive.ph/QA6oK "Ukraine and Russia must unite into a single state"
GfK 2014 March 12-14: 54% would join Russia, 5% restore 1992 constitution, 19% independent Crimean state, 13% keep status quo
Leaked Report From the Council on Human Rights
Russian President's Council on Human Rights 2014 April 27: 50-60% of voters voted for joining Russia, with turnout of 30-50%
Russian President's Council on Human Rights 2014 April 27: 50-60% of voters voted for joining Russia, with turnout of 30-50%: https://web.archive.org/web/20140427024525/http://www.president-sovet.ru/structure/gruppa_po_migratsionnoy_politike/materialy/problemy_zhiteley_kryma.php https://archive.ph/dbq56 " " ["Problems of Crimean residents"]
: : - ( 50-80 %), 50-60 % 30-50 %; - , , , . . , .
Referendum: In the opinion of almost all the experts and citizens surveyed: - the overwhelming majority of Sevastopol residents voted in the referendum for joining Russia (50-80% turnout), in Crimea, according to various sources, 50-60% of voters voted for joining Russia, with a total turnout in 30-50%; - the inhabitants of Crimea voted not so much for joining Russia, but for stopping, in their words, "corruption lawlessness and the dominance of thieves by Donetsk proteges." The inhabitants of Sevastopol voted specifically for joining Russia. Fears of illegal armed formations in Sevastopol were greater than in other regions of Crimea.
Paul Gregory from Forbes confirming the above
Referendum Results
Wikipedia
^ Wikipedia's source
Post-Referendum Polling
Sasse 2017: 78.8% of Crimean residents say they would vote the same as in March 2014, suggesting that most residents would have supported the referendum
Polling in 2014
KIIS 2014 April 8-16: among Donetsk residents, 52.2% oppose and 27.5% support seceding from Ukraine to join Russia; among Luhansk residents, 51.9% oppose and 30.3% support
KIIS 2014 April 8-16: among Donetsk residents, 52.2% oppose and 27.5% support seceding from Ukraine to join Russia; among Luhansk residents, 51.9% oppose and 30.3% support: https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=news&id=258 https://archive.ph/aycDU https://web.archive.org/web/20160125153703/http://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=news&id=258 "Do you support the idea, that your region should secede from Ukraine and join Russia?"
Polling in 2016 and 2019
Sasse 2017 (ZOiS December 2016): 35.0+20.6=55.6% of DPR/LPR residents said that they would prefer that the DPR/LPR be made part of Ukraine; 11.4+33.1=44.5% said that they would prefer that the DPR/LPR be made part of Russia
Sasse and Lackner 2019 (ZOiS February March 2019): 31.0+23.5=54.5% of DPR/LPR residents said that they would prefer that the DPR/LPR be made part of Ukraine; 18.3+27.2=45.5% said that they would prefer part of Russia
^ ZOiS is funded by the German Government
Polling in 2022
CNN / Savanta ComRes 2022 Feb 7-15: 17.7% of Eastern Ukraine residents, 16.0% of Southern Ukraine residents, 19.1% of Russian-speaking residents think that "Russia and Ukraine should be one country"
CNN / Savanta ComRes 2022 Feb 7-15: 17.7% of Eastern Ukraine residents, 16.0% of Southern Ukraine residents, 19.1% of Russian-speaking residents think that "Russia and Ukraine should be one country": https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html https://archive.ph/Oj0D4 https://comresglobal.com/polls/russians-ukrainians-poll-cnn-23-feb/ https://archive.ph/wip/07kQR 39/220=17.7%, 33/206=16.0%
2014 Referendum Results
Wikipedia
Donetsk 11 May 2014
Donetsk 11 May 2014: https://archive.ph/4gFhp "Do you support the Act of State Self-rule of the Donetsk People's Republic?" "
"That can be considered the final and official result," he said, reporting exact figures of 89.07 percent for and 10.19 percent against. "We demand the right to self-determination, and we will get it.
Luhansk 11 May 2014
Luhansk 11 May 2014: http://web.archive.org/web/20140513010835/https://interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=503984 https://archive.ph/wip/Q5zwO "Do you support the declaration of state independence of the Luhansk People's Republic?"
LUHANSK. May 12 (Interfax) - The organizers of the referendum on the status of the Luhansk region allege that 96% of the region's residents who have a right to vote voted for the state independence of the Luhansk People's Republic on May 11. Oleksandr Malykhin, chairman for the Central Elections Commission in charge of the referendum, told a press conference in Luhansk on Monday that 1.35 million ballots were given to voters at polling stations and another 15,000 ballots were given to voters outside of polling stations. According to his information, 1.29 million people, or 96% of the people who voted in the referendum, voted for the state independence of the "Luhansk Republic" and 51,276 people, or 3.8% of the people who received ballots, voted against it. The voter turnout was 75%, Malykhin said. According to the tentative results announced by Malykhin on Monday, the voter turnout reached in the Luhansk region reached 81%, of which 95.98% voted for the federalization of the Luhansk region.
2022 Referendum Results
Wikipedia
RIA NOVOSTI 2022 Sep 27: results by region
Blank Ballots
1TV News: watch a polling staffer "count" blank votes all as yes
CNN September 27: poll workers counting (blank) ballots
CNN September 27: poll workers counting (blank) ballots: https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-09-27-22/h_95fda5c8d8b7db53907f105c129ff96f https://archive.ph/wip/sdM9N
Members of an election commission count ballots at a polling station in Donetsk on September 27. (Stringer/AP)
Nexta September 27: poll watchers with nearly all blank ballots in front of them
Nexta September 27: poll watchers with nearly all blank ballots in front of them: https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1574846654343221275 https://archive.ph/IfofZ
Notable "International Poll Watchers"
1TV News
"Why Aren't There International Observers for US Elections"
there are. the OSCE (an international organization) observed the US election in 2020
no observers from the OSCE (an international organizations) observed the referenda in 2022
List of Absurdly Stupid People Who Accepted or Promoted the Sham 2022 Referenda Results
Black in the Empire @blackintheempir
UkraineNews @Ukraine66251776
D VID.cu @Dvdzov
ivstitia @ivstitia1
Sphithiphithi Evaluator @_AfricanSoil
Eva Karene Bartlett @EvaKBartlett
vanessa beeley @VanessaBeeley
vanessa beeley @VanessaBeeley
vanessa beeley @VanessaBeeley
vanessa beeley @VanessaBeeley
Valeria @Valere_ia
Rachel Blevins @RachBlevins
@privetbro1
Fiorella Isabel @FiorellaIsabelM (of The Convo Couch @TheConvoCouch)
Fiorella Isabel @FiorellaIsabelM (of The Convo Couch @TheConvoCouch)
Fiorella Isabel @FiorellaIsabelM (of The Convo Couch @TheConvoCouch)
Patrick Lancaster @PLnewstoday
AZ @AZmilitary1
Jacob Charite @jaccocharite
Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal
Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal
See Also
Civilian Harm in Ukraine map
Map
map of location: ZoomEarth plus annotations
Drone Footage by Ukrainian Armed Forces
ZDF 2022 April 1, from Ukrainian Armed Forces on 2022 March 7: Russian tank unit executes two surrendered civilians, drag off their bodies, brun the bodies, and then burn the cars
BBC 2022 March 15, from Ukrainian Armed Forces on 2022 March 7: Russian tank unit executes two surrendered civilians, drag off their bodies, brun the bodies, and then burn the cars
BBC 2022 March 15, from Ukrainian Armed Forces on 2022 March 7: Russian tank unit executes two surrendered civilians, drag off their bodies, brun the bodies, and then burn the cars: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60949791 https://archive.ph/uarhy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNTPyAsMmxs https://archive.ph/wip/SPOg6
Background: Geolocation
rough coordinates: 50.548611, 30.220833 or 50 32 55 N 30 13 15 E
rough coordinates: 50.548611, 30.220833 or 50 32 55 N 30 13 15 E
map of location: NYTimes
map of location: ZoomEarth plus annotations
Background: Forces Present
Bellingcat 2022 April 03: 76th Air Assault, 98th Air Assault, Kadyrov's Rosgvardia
Bellingcat 2022 April 03: 76th Air Assault, 98th Air Assault, Kadyrov's Rosgvardia https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1510613976903827457
WaPo 2022 April 02: 7th Paratrooper Unit 11
WaPo 2022 April 02: 7th Paratrooper Unit 11: https://archive.ph/dFohi
Kyiv Independent: 64 Motor Rifle Brigade
76th Guards Air Assault Division
98th Guards Airborne Division
7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division
64th Motor Rifle Brigade
Kadyrov Rosgvardia ("Kadyrovites")
Wagner Group
Background: Timeline
2022 February 26: attacks on Bucha begin by 64th Motor Rifle Brigade
2022 February 27: fighting in Bucha continues: video 1
^ some sources in accurately say Russians had already taken the suburb
2022 March 30: Russian forces claim they have completely left the city by this date
2022 March 30: Russian forces claim they have completely left the city by this date: https://t.me/MFARussia/12230 https://archive.ph/Oovng
2022 March 31: Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk gives address claiming "day of liberation" for Bucha
2022 April 01: Bucha City Councilmember Taras Shapravsky claims that "the city remains under occupation" and "the liberation of the city continues"
2022 April 01: Bucha City Councilmember Taras Shapravsky claims that "the city remains under occupation" and "the liberation of the city continues": https://t.me/News380/7839 https://archive.ph/oZfe2 https://archive.org/details/taras-shapravsky-2022-april-01-bucha-announcement
2022 April 01: Ukrainian forces enter city
Yablonska: Bicyclist: Combined Footage: Russian Forces Fire on Cyclist at Exact Spot Where Cyclist Body Is Found Later
Armed Forces of Ukraine / Nexta 2022 April 5, drone video shot before 2022 March 11, drone footage shows Russian armor fire on a cyclist at 50.54148, 30.228898
Armed Forces of Ukraine / Nexta 2022 April 5, drone video shot before 2022 March 11, drone footage shows Russian armor fire on a cyclist at 50.54148, 30.228898: https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1511284174921076736 https://archive.ph/Z11LC https://t.me/nexta_live/24647 https://archive.ph/LHJda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexta https://archive.org/details/bucha-video-before-march-11-firing-on-cyclist
New drone imagery shows Russian forces firing on a cyclists in Bucha, on Yablunska Street at 50.54148, 30.228898, where multiple corpses have been filmed and photographed
?
What will the Russian authorities say to this video from Bucha?
Informatsia Obstanovka 2022 April 1, attributed to "kievskiy.dvizh" on Instagram: footage from Bucha streets, going along with Ukrainian military members; bicyclist from above is clearly visible
Informatsia Obstanovka 2022 April 1, attributed to "kievskiy.dvizh" on Instagram: footage from Bucha streets, going along with Ukrainian military members; bicyclist from above is clearly visible: https://t.me/informatsia_obstanovka/11742 https://archive.ph/vFDR0 https://archive.org/details/informatsia-obstanovka-2022-april-01-bucha-street-ground-footage-military-1 https://archive.org/details/informatsia-obstanovka-2022-april-01-bucha-street-ground-footage-military-2
, , . .
Irpen, monstrous footage from the suburbs of Kyiv, where the UAF defeated the orcs. Not to look nervous.
^ Kievsky Dvizh channels
^ Bellingcat 2022 April 5: satellite pictures from Planet show the building next to the street corner was destroyed on 11 March, indicating that the video took place before that date
^ Bellingcat 2022 April 5: satellite pictures from Planet show the building next to the street corner was destroyed on 11 March, indicating that the video took place before that date: https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1511289179375915010 https://archive.ph/1mogW https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1511287585116766210 https://archive.ph/iQ3SN
NYTimes 2022 April 5: videos highlighting the objects and sequence of events in above UFA video and in IO video
NYTimes 2022 April 5: satellite images from Maxar demonstrate that the body shown in the IO video was present there since before March 21
NYTimes 2022 April 5: satellite images from Maxar demonstrate that the body shown in the IO video was present there since before March 21: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/05/world/europe/bucha-shooting-video.html https://archive.ph/tKSfo
AFP 2022 April 5: satellite images from Maxar demonstrate that at least six of the bodies shown on Yablonsky street were present on March 19
Yablonska: Yablonska Artem Drivethrough: Combined Footage: Satellite Images Prove Bodies Not Present on 28 February, Appeared on 9-11 March and 20-21 March
(Artem Gurin), before 9:02pm UTC [10:02 PM in Ukraine] on April 1st: ground footage as verified by three Twitter posters, drives down Yablonska street and shows 11 bodies
NYTimes and Maxar 2022 February 28: 9 of 11 bodies can be exactly geolocated using satellite images
NYTimes and Maxar 2022 February 28: this section of yablonska street has no bodies
NYTimes and Maxar 2022 February 28: this section of yablonska street has 7 bodies
The images of Yablonska Street show at least 11 "dark objects of similar size to a human body" appearing between 9 and 11 March. Their location precisely matches positions where the bodies were filmed by a local council member after Ukrainian forces reclaimed the city. A second video on the same street shows three bodies near bicycles and abandoned cars, which according to satellite imagery appeared between 20 and 21 March. The Times concluded that the analysis rebuts Russian claims about the killing of civilians happening after withdrawal of the Russian army.
The images of Yablonska Street show at least 11 "dark objects of similar size to a human body" appearing between 9 and 11 March. Their location precisely matches positions where the bodies were filmed by a local council member after Ukrainian forces reclaimed the city. A second video on the same street shows three bodies near bicycles and abandoned cars, which according to satellite imagery appeared between 20 and 21 March. The Times concluded that the analysis rebuts Russian claims about the killing of civilians happening after withdrawal of the Russian army.
Yablonska: Ground Footage: Ukrainian Military Driving Through Street
Ministry of Defense of Ukraine 2022 April 2
TODO GET GROUND PICS
see also
Yablonska: Combined Footage: Afp, Reuters, Wapo
AFP 2022 April 02: "In the town of Bucha, AFP reporters saw at least 20 bodies on a single street including one with his hands tied"; picture by AFP photojournalist Ronald Schemidt shows two men walking near several bodies on the street; unclear geolocation
picture by AFP photojournalist Ronald Schemidt shows 6 bodies on unclear geolocation: TODO
picture by AFP photojournalist Ronald Schemidt shows 6 bodies on unclear geolocation: TODO:
Ronald Schemidt: clear shot of bicyclist through burned out car windows
Ronald Schemidt: body strewn with bodies
Reuters 2022 April 02: "Vasily, 55, reacts while talking to journalists beside the body of a relative, who according to him was killed by Russian army soldiers, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in Kyiv region, Ukraine April 2, 2022. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra"
Reuters 2022 April 02: "Vasily, 55, reacts while talking to journalists beside the body of a relative, who according to him was killed by Russian army soldiers, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in Kyiv region, Ukraine April 2, 2022. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra" https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-retreat-leaves-trail-slain-civilians-town-near-kyiv-2022-04-02/ https://archive.ph/cHCEo
Reuters 2022 April 02: "A body of a civilian, who according to residents was killed by Russian army soldiers, lies on the street, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in Kyiv region, Ukraine April 2, 2022. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra"
Reuters 2022 April 02: "A body of a civilian, who according to residents was killed by Russian army soldiers, lies on the street, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in Kyiv region, Ukraine April 2, 2022. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra" https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-retreat-leaves-trail-slain-civilians-town-near-kyiv-2022-04-02/ https://archive.ph/cHCEo
WaPo 2022 April 3: video of various bodies around the town, on the street, in houses, etc.
WaPo 2022 April 3: video of various bodies around the town, on the street, in houses, etc.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/02/bucha-bodies-russia-retreat-kyiv/ https://archive.ph/dFohi
Bucha s mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told The Post by phone that around 270 local residents had been buried in two mass graves. He also said that about 40 people were lying in the streets but that it was difficult to get a count. Some of the bodies had their hands bound or were shot in the back of the head, he said.
Yablonsky: Combined Footage:
Bucha Live 2022 April 03, alleged cellphone footage of Russian soldiers allegedly interrogating and executing a Ukrainian civilian, allegedly recorded on 2022 March 25
^ geolocated to at 50.5423642, 30.2317107
^ composite image of above with footage from UFA drive through Ukraine
^ Galit Glockman 2022 April 3: composite footage from AFP and cellphone footage
^ Galit Glockman 2022 April 4: stabilized footage clearly showing a shot
Trench: Satellite Images: Existed by 10 March, Was 45 Feet Long on 31 March; Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints
Maxar 2022 March 10: picture shows trench about 6 feet long
Maxar 2022 March 31: picture shows trench about 45 feet long
Trench: Ground Footage: Contextualized, May Be Burials of "Civilian Men" or "Civil Defenders"
Director of Primary Healthcare for Irpin City Center Andrii Levkivskyi [ ] 2022 March 12: 67 civilians were buried
Director of Primary Healthcare for Irpin City Center Andrii Levkivskyi [ ] 2022 March 12: 67 civilians were buried: https://www.facebook.com/Andrii.Levkivskiy/videos/339306041473282/ https://archive.ph/soPur https://archive.org/details/andrii-levkivskyi-2022-march-12-mass-grave-civilians
, 67 . . , .. ?! P.S. , ?????????????
And now about the unpleasant, 67 civilians were buried on the territory of the city Church of Bucha in a mass grave. They were different, where no one was even identified .. You say there is no war ?! P.S. Crosses are not placed on mass graves, but is it easier ?????????????
4K Media: civil defenders were buried
4K Media: civil defenders were buried: https://www.facebook.com/4kmps/videos/1034139267196359/ https://archive.ph/wip/xf318
, ( ). - . , 67 . . , ?! , . Civil defenders of Ukraine were buried in a mass grave in Bucha, some could not even be identified (video). This was announced by the director of the Irpin city center of primary health care Andriy Levkivsky. "And now it's not pleasant, 67 civilians were buried on the territory of the city church in Bucha. They were different, some were not even identified You say there is no war ?! , - he noted.
Trench: Misattributed Image: Motyzhyn Trench Buried Bodies
UNIAN, 2022 April 02: image is actually from Motyzhyn
UNIAN, 2022 April 02: image is actually from Motyzhyn: https://t.me/uniannet/43728 https://archive.ph/wip/091Zg
. , . . Images from Motyzhyn. A mass grave full of civilians who were killed by the occupiers. Some of them have their arms tied.
Russian State Media Claims: Bodies Moved in Bucha Films: It's Literally a Water Drop and Mirror Edge
Russia Defense Ministry: bodies are fake and clearly moved
Russia Defense Ministry: bodies are fake and clearly moved: https://t.me/mod_russia_en/643 https://archive.ph/dJcBI
The video of the bodies is confusing: here at the 12th second the "corpse" on the right is moving his arm. At 30th second in the rear view mirror the "corpse" sits down. The bodies in the video seem to have been deliberately laid out to create a more dramatic picture. This is easily seen if you play the video at 0.25 of normal speed.
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN: "Forget this video where a corpse suddenly waves his hand! It s all Russian propaganda! Next time they will simply find better actors!"
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN: "Forget this video where a corpse suddenly waves his hand! It s all Russian propaganda! Next time they will simply find better actors!" https://twitter.com/Dpol_un/status/1510635487710662672 https://archive.ph/FKcO8
Original video in HD
AuroraIntel 2022 April 3: slowed footage shows that the body "raising its arm" is clearly just a water droplet on the windshield
AuroraIntel 2022 April 3: slowed footage shows that the body "raising its arm" is clearly just a water droplet on the windshield: https://twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1510641101643919368 https://archive.ph/G7Gbj https://archive.org/details/yablonska-slowed-inverted-arm-moving-claim-debunked
Getting fed up of this it s a moving arm bullsh .. it s a raindrop on the windscreen, alongside an inverted channel version for more clarity. The whole arm moving thing is just ridiculous.
Shayan Sardarizadeh 2022 April 3: slowed footage shows that the body "getting up" is clearly just mirror distortion
AFP photojournalist Danny Kemp, 2022 April 03: the same body was photographed by the AFP on 03 April in the exact same position and location
AFP photojournalist Danny Kemp, 2022 April 03: the same body was photographed by the AFP on 03 April in the exact same position and location: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.327R8KF https://archive.ph/wip/VZUj8
Russian State Media Claims: Bodies Looked Fresh: False
AFP reporters 2022 April 02: "The skin on the faces of the corpses looked waxy, suggesting that they had been there for at least several days"; "AFP on Saturday saw the bodies of at least 22 people in civilian clothes on a single street in Bucha"
AFP reporters 2022 April 02: "The skin on the faces of the corpses looked waxy, suggesting that they had been there for at least several days"; "AFP on Saturday saw the bodies of at least 22 people in civilian clothes on a single street in Bucha": https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/04/04/what-we-know-about-what-happened-in-ukraines-bucha-a77197 https://archive.ph/wip/Ss9U2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agence_France-Presse
AFP photojournalist Danny Kemp, 2022 April 06
AFP photojournalist Danny Kemp, 2022 April 06: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.327R8KF https://archive.ph/wip/VZUj8
They were spaced out along the street at irregular intervals over a distance of around 400 metres, some alone and some in small groups of two or three. We walked along the entire length of the scene at least twice. We counted the bodies, noting that there were 20, photographed them, and filmed them. At no time did we see any of them move. "During that time we noted that the bodies were all wearing civilian clothing. They had waxy, sallow skin, and had stiff-looking fingers, with some having discoloured fingernails. Some had limbs in awkward poses. "Some had their eyes open, some had their mouths gaping open. They had clearly been dead for a number of days, if not longer.
Russian State Media Claims: Azov Battalion Entered: Correct, but Timeline Puts Them Entering on 2Nd at Earliest
NYTimes, 2022 April 2: NYTimes photojournalist Daniel Berehulak toured Bucha streets with neo-Nazi Azov Battalion members of the international "Odin Unit"; elderly residents of Bucha walk past a body on the street
NYTimes, 2022 April 2: NYTimes photojournalist Daniel Berehulak toured Bucha streets with neo-Nazi Azov Battalion members of the international "Odin Unit"; elderly residents of Bucha walk past a body on the street: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/02/world/ukraine-russia-war#scenes-of-desperation-and-death-as-the-russians-retreat-from-suburbs-outside-kyiv https://archive.ph/VYErY#selection-1267.0-1267.82
NYTimes, 2022 April 03: this picture of the Azov Battalion is undated, posted on April 03
Russian State Media Claims: Deaths May Have Resulted From Ukrainian Shelling
Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, 2022 April 4
Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, 2022 April 4: https://tass.com/politics/1431827
Meanwhile, the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled the town of Bucha right after Russian troops had left was deliberately ignored in the US. This is what could have caused civilian casualties. That said, the Kiev regime is clearly trying to blame its atrocities on Russia.
Bucha Massacre: Todo
lots of ground footage from AFP
videos, see bottom for YT link
Collates together several Yablonska street claims
Lots of skeptical videos
Footage of a horrific killing
Footage of a horrific killing
anti-skeptical evidence
skeptical timeline
skeptical bullshit
Bucha Massacre: German Intelligence
Der Spiegel, 2022 April 7: the German foreign intelligence service BND intercepted radio traffic from north of Kiev; BND claims the audio incriminates Russian soldiers, who spoke about killing civilians as though it were commonplace; BND claims the audio indicates that the Wagner Group was present
Der Spiegel, 2022 April 7: the German foreign intelligence service BND intercepted radio traffic from north of Kiev; BND claims the audio incriminates Russian soldiers, who spoke about killing civilians as though it were commonplace; BND claims the audio indicates that the Wagner Group was present: https://archive.ph/iRL2l https://archive.ph/6cGKv
The intercepted comments now appear to refute Russia s denials. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the BND briefed parliamentarians on Wednesday about its findings. Some of the intercepted traffic apparently matches the locations of bodies found along the main road through town. In one of them, a soldier apparently told another that they had just shot a person on a bicycle. That corresponds to the photo of the dead body lying next to a bicycle that has been shared around the world. In another intercepted conversation, a man apparently said: First you interrogate soldiers, then you shoot them. The BND material also apparently provides evidence that members of the Russian mercenary unit called the Wagner Group played a leading role in the atrocities. The group is known to have perpetrated similar atrocities in Syria. [....] The radio traffic intercepted by the BND makes it seem as though the atrocities perpetrated on civilians in Bucha were neither random acts nor the product of individual soldiers who got out of hand. Rather, say sources familiar with the audio, the material suggests that the troops spoke of the atrocities as though they were simply discussing their everyday lives. That, say sources familiar with the audio, indicates that the murder of civilians has become a standard element of Russian military activity, potentially even part of a broader strategy. The intention is that of spreading fear among the civilian population and thus reducing the will to resist.
Bucha Massacre: Testimony
HRW 2022 March 30: Olena alleges hearing of extrajudicial killings, lootings, and random shootings at residences
HRW 2022 March 30: Olena alleges hearing of extrajudicial killings, lootings, and random shootings at residences: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/30/devastation-and-loss-bucha-ukraine https://archive.ph/s1qaa
By March 4, Russian forces were everywhere in Bucha. They drove tanks and armored vehicles through people s fences and parked them in residential backyards. There were military vehicles at every house, near every apartment building. We saw them [military vehicles] driving down the street [Sklozavodska], shooting randomly at windows, Olena said. They were just shooting. Russian soldiers went from house to house, breaking doors and windows, searching and questioning people. Olena saw them taking people s clothes and shoes, changing, and dumping their own clothes on the street. They heard reports of extrajudicial killings and civilians shot while trying to get water. [....] The soldiers walked Olena back to Yablunska Street and told her to stand facing away from her house. One of them shot a gun at her feet, marking a line of bullet holes on the road. See this line? Walk along it, do not sway, he told her. If you veer left or right, you are dead.
HRW 2022 March 30: killing of Olena's husband
HRW 2022 March 30: killing of Olena's husband: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/30/devastation-and-loss-bucha-ukraine https://archive.ph/s1qaa
Dmytro Mukhin spoke very fast, when I asked what happened to Viktor. He said that it happened on March 5, at around 1 p.m. It was quiet, so we got out of the shelter, [went to the house] and were on the ground floor, in a room. And then [shelling] hit the house, two direct hits, one after another. We all fell to the floor. Two or three minutes later we heard glass breaking outside, then loud steps. Someone was yelling: Check the second floor! Vitya moved, he got up, there was automatic gunfire and he fell, screaming in pain. He yelled: Please don t shoot! I am wounded, there are civilians here, children, don t shoot. The [soldiers] started banging on the door. We opened and they walked in. There were 4 or 5 of them, I don t even remember now. Their clothes were very dirty, some of them had St. George [orange and black striped] ribbons on their helmets. They told us to get outside, one by one. We went into the yard. We said, there is a wounded man there, please help him. They refused. They said they had no bandages or medicines. We stood there for 30 or 40 minutes while they searched the house. Then they came outside, told us to go in and stay there, and left. We went inside. We tried to help Vitya. He was still alive, lying where we left him. We cut his sweater open and saw that there was a surface wound on this chest, no entry bullet wound, and I thought for a moment that it was not so bad. But when we turned him over, we saw three bullet holes around his left shoulder blade. His sleeve was soaked through, and the blood pooled on the floor under him. We tried to stop the bleeding with the bedsheet. He was struggling to breathe. Viktor died 20 minutes later. Dmytro and his family put him on a mattress and dragged him to the boiler room, which was the coldest room in the house. They spent two more nights sheltering in Viktor and Olena s house before fleeing Bucha. Dmytro s voice was calm but it shook a little when he said he felt responsible for what happened. If I hadn t asked them for help, Vitya might have still been alive.
HRW 2022 April 3: witness alleges that Russian forces executed one of five men
HRW 2022 April 3: witness alleges that Russian forces executed one of five men: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas https://archive.ph/quJdI
On March 4, Russian forces in Bucha, about 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, rounded up five men and summarily executed one of them. A witness told Human Rights Watch that soldiers forced the five men to kneel on the side of the road, pulled their T-shirts over their heads, and shot one of the men in the back of the head. He fell [over], the witness said, and the women [present at the scene] screamed.
HRW 2022 April 3: teacher alleges executoin of several men
HRW 2022 April 3: teacher alleges executoin of several men: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas https://archive.ph/quJdI
On March 4, Russian forces summarily executed a man in Bucha, 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, and threatened to execute four others, said a teacher who witnessed the killing. She said she heard shooting at about 7 a.m. and saw three Russian armored vehicles and four Kamaz [Russian brand] trucks driving down her street. She was sheltering in the cellar with her two dogs when she heard glass breaking, and then her front door being broken down. Voices outside said [in Russian]: Come outside right now or we will throw a grenade. She yelled that she was alone in the cellar and came out with her hands up. There were three men outside, two [Russian] soldiers and a commander, she said. They took my phone and checked it, then told me to get my [identification] documents and come with them. As she walked down the street with the soldiers, she saw that they were also rounding up her neighbors and ordering them to walk. She said: They took us to where the office of AgroButpostach [a rental storage company] used to be. Right next to the building, there is a parking lot and a small square. They gathered people at that square, mostly women but there were also several men among us, over 50 [years old]. There were around 30 military there and the commander had [paratrooper] insignia [on his fatigues]. He spoke with an accent from western or central western Russia . I was born in Russia myself, so I pick up on such things. The soldiers were all thin and looked the worse for wear. She said that the soldiers brought about 40 people to the square, gathered everyone s phones, checked documents, and asked who was in territorial defense, or local self-defense units: Two women asked to go to the bathroom. One of them was pregnant. I asked to go with them. A soldier showed us the way to the toilet, which was around the building, I think it was now their headquarters. The building was long. Along the wall on the other side, we saw a large pool of blood. She said they waited in the square for hours in the very cold weather: At one point they brought in one young man, then four more. The soldiers ordered them [to] take off their boots and jackets. They made them kneel on the side of the road. Russian soldiers pulled their T-shirts, from behind and over their heads. They shot one in the back of the head. He fell. Women screamed. The other four men were just kneeling there. The commander said to the rest of the people at the square: Don t worry. You are all normal and this is dirt. We are here to cleanse you from the dirt. She said that after several more hours the soldiers took the people back to their homes. The other four men remained kneeling when she left. She said that when she was able to leave the town on March 9, the young man s body was still lying where he had been shot.
Amnesty International, 2022 April 7: woman's mother testify that she was shot when looking over her fence at a Russian military vehicle; woman's neighbor testifies that she saw the woman dead on the street outside the woman's house
Amnesty International, 2022 April 7: woman's mother testify that she was shot when looking over her fence at a Russian military vehicle; woman's neighbor testifies that she saw the woman dead on the street outside the woman's house: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/ukraine-russian-forces-extrajudicially-executing-civilians-in-apparent-war-crimes-new-testimony/ https://archive.ph/4oD8p
Milena, a 24-year-old from Bucha, told Amnesty International that she saw the body of a woman who had lived on her street lying outside her house. The woman s mother told Milena that her daughter was shot in the initial days of the invasion while looking over her fence at a Russian military vehicle. Amnesty International s Crisis Evidence Lab independently verified video footage that confirmed the location of the shallow grave in which she was buried.
Russian State Media Claims: Mayor Did Not Mention Civilian Deaths in 31 March Address: False in Context
Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 31, original
^ Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 31, Ruptly translation: no explicit mention of bodies on the street
^ Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 31, Ruptly translation: no explicit mention of bodies on the street: https://twitter.com/Ruptly/status/1510942758868975620 https://archive.org/details/anatoliy-fedoruk-31st-may-ruptly
Dear friends, the honored community of Bucha! March 31 will become the history of our settlement and the entire territorial community as the day of liberation of our settlements from the Russian orcs, from the Russian occupants by our Armed Forces of Ukraine. So, today I state that this day is a great day, a day of great victory. A great victory for our armed forces in the Kiev region. We will be with you, we will wait for you, and we will do everything to make the great victory happen in the whole of Ukraine. Glory to the Armed Forces of Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to all Ukrainians, no matter which part of Ukraine they are in now.
^ Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 31, Russian Mission in Geneva translation: no explicit mention of bodies on the street; Russian claim "Not a single word on the tragedy. Either he was too blind too see all the reported dead in the streets, or they appeared there much later..."
^ Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 31, Russian Mission in Geneva translation: no explicit mention of bodies on the street; Russian claim "Not a single word on the tragedy. Either he was too blind too see all the reported dead in the streets, or they appeared there much later...": https://twitter.com/mission_russian/status/1510891234616819712
Dear friends, this is the Bucha community. March 31 will go down in history of our city, our entire territorial community as the day of liberation from Russian "orks", Russian occupiers by our armed forces of our settlements. I can state that today's a happy day and a great victory, a great victory of our armed forces in the Kiev area. And the wait will soon be over, as we will do everything so taht the great victory will be over the entire Ukraine. Glory to our armed forces, glory to Ukraine, glory to every Ukrainian everywhere in our country!
Bucha City Councilmember Taras Shapravsky, 2022 April 01: claims that "the city remains under occupation" and "the liberation of the city continues"
Bucha City Councilmember Taras Shapravsky, 2022 April 01: claims that "the city remains under occupation" and "the liberation of the city continues": https://t.me/News380/7839 https://archive.ph/oZfe2 https://archive.org/details/taras-shapravsky-2022-april-01-bucha-announcement
Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 28: Russians "do not allow doctors to help the wounded" or "relatives to recover the bdoies of their loved ones"; "Some corpses have been there since the beginning of the occupation, the hungry dogs are eating them"
Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 28: Russians "do not allow doctors to help the wounded" or "relatives to recover the bdoies of their loved ones"; "Some corpses have been there since the beginning of the occupation, the hungry dogs are eating them": https://www.adnkronos.com/guerra-ucraina-sindaco-di-bucha-zona-occupata-dai-russi-viviamo-orrori-da-ii-guerra-mondiale_1OWz5bnrdb780NZAwTPiyj https://archive.ph/wip/Rs6ag
A questo si somma "un piano del terrore contro la popolazione civile: qui a Bucha vediamo tutti gli orrori di cui abbiamo sentito parlare come crimini compiuti dai nazisti durante la seconda guerra mondiale. difficile credere che una cosa del genere possa accadere nel XXI secolo", osserva il sindaco, riferendo di brutali uccisioni di civili, stupri e saccheggi delle case da parte dei soldati russi, che "non hanno piet neanche per gli anziani, non consentono ai medici di prestare soccorso ai feriti e ai parenti di recuperare i corpi dei loro cari morti. Alcuni cadaveri sono l dall'inizio dell'occupazione, li stanno mangiando i cani affamati. I russi devono far entrare nei territori temporaneamente occupati una missione internazionale, affinch si fermi lo spregio dei morti".
To this is added "a plan of terror against the civilian population: here in Bucha we see all the horrors we have heard of as crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II. It is difficult to believe that such a thing could happen in the 21st century. ", observes the mayor, referring to brutal killings of civilians, rape and looting of homes by Russian soldiers, who" have no mercy even for the elderly, do not allow doctors to help the wounded and relatives to recover the bodies of their loved ones dead. Some corpses have been there since the beginning of the occupation, the hungry dogs are eating them. The Russians must have an international mission enter the temporarily occupied territories, so that the contempt for the dead stops".
Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 7: """We can t even gather up the bodies because the shelling from heavy weapons doesn t stop day or night. Dogs are pulling apart the bodies on the city streets. It s a nightmare."""
Anatoliy Fedoruk 2022 March 7: : https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-new-zealand-global-trade-23327d0cb464c712ee042dfac159f1a2
We can t even gather up the bodies because the shelling from heavy weapons doesn t stop day or night. Dogs are pulling apart the bodies on the city streets. It s a nightmare.
Anatolii Fedoruk 2022 April 2: """Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said more than 300 residents of the town had been killed, and a mass grave at one church ground was still open, with hands and feet poking through the red clay heaped on top."""
Anatolii Fedoruk 2022 April 2: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-retreat-leaves-trail-slain-civilians-town-near-kyiv-2022-04-02/ https://archive.ph/cHCEo
Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said more than 300 residents of the town had been killed, and a mass grave at one church ground was still open, with hands and feet poking through the red clay heaped on top.
WaPo 2022 April 3: ~310 dead, 270 buried in two mass graves, 40 on street
WaPo 2022 April 3: ~310 dead, 270 buried in two mass graves, 40 on street: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/02/bucha-bodies-russia-retreat-kyiv/ https://archive.ph/dFohi
Bucha s mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told The Post by phone that around 270 local residents had been buried in two mass graves. He also said that about 40 people were lying in the streets but that it was difficult to get a count. Some of the bodies had their hands bound or were shot in the back of the head, he said.
Russian State Media Claims: When Russia Pulled Out of Bucha
background: Zvezda is a news service run by the Russian Ministry of Defense
background: Zvezda is a news service run by the Russian Ministry of Defense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvezda_(TV_channel)
Zvezda 2022 April 01: airborne troops and marines successfull held back Ukrainians for five days
Zvezda 2022 April 01: airborne troops and marines successfull held back Ukrainians for five days: https://tvzvezda.ru/news/20224151-KMqbZ.html https://archive.ph/gWRkL
- - - . , .
The units of the airborne troops, in cooperation with the marines, successfully held back the actions of the enemy forces in the direction of Gostomel - Bucha - Ozera for five days. As a result, the marines were able to take full control of the territory from the Irpin River towards Kiev, with a total length of five kilometers.
Zvezda 2022 April 03: the Russian Ministry of Defense claims that Russian forces had left the city before evidence of the massacre emerged
Zvezda 2022 April 03: the Russian Ministry of Defense claims that Russian forces had left the city before evidence of the massacre emerged: https://tvzvezda.ru/news/2022431758-FFsX5.html https://archive.ph/hXSvD
, 4 . 30 , . 31 , - . , , , .
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian units left Bucha 4 days before the appearance of "evidence of crimes" in the media. They completely left the settlement on March 30, the day after the face-to-face round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey. On March 31, the mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Fedoruk, confirmed in his video message that there were no Russian soldiers in the city and did not even mention any local residents shot in the streets with their hands tied. As emphasized in the defense department, it is not surprising that all the so-called "evidence of crimes" in Bucha appeared only on the fourth day, when SBU officers and representatives of Ukrainian television arrived in the city.
Zvezda 2022 April 03: the Russian Defense Ministry claims that all photographs and videos published by Kiev are fake; the bodies are fake because they are not stiffened, do not have cadaveric spots, and have uncoagulated blood in wounds
Zvezda 2022 April 03: the Russian Defense Ministry claims that all photographs and videos published by Kiev are fake; the bodies are fake because they are not stiffened, do not have cadaveric spots, and have uncoagulated blood in wounds: https://tvzvezda.ru/news/2022431752-6C7ug.html https://archive.ph/HXuFm
, - " " ... , , , , , . , - , , , - .
All the photographs and video materials published by the Kiev regime, allegedly testifying to some kind of crimes by Russian military personnel in the city of Bucha, Kiev region, are another provocation ... Of particular concern is the fact that all the bodies of people whose images are published by the Kiev regime, after at least four days have not stiffened, do not have characteristic cadaveric spots, and uncoagulated blood in the wounds. All this irrefutably confirms that the photographs and video footage from Bucha are another production of the Kiev regime for the Western media, as was the case in Mariupol with the maternity hospital, as well as in other cities, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
^ Russian Foreign Ministry 2022 April 03: full statement as above
^ Russian Foreign Ministry 2022 April 03: full statement as above: https://t.me/MFARussia/12230 https://archive.ph/Oovng
^ Russian Defence Ministry 2022 April 03: full statement as above
United Nations Meeting: Going Ahead!
2022 April 03: Russia blames Britain for blocking a UN Security Council meeting to discuss alleged war crimes in Bucha
2022 April 07: Russia removed from Human Rights Council
2022 April 07: Russia removed from Human Rights Council: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115782
2022 April 07: Russia threatens to veto a UN investigation of Bucha through the ICC
2022 April 07: the Human Rights Council votes 33-2 to investigate alleged war crimes of Russian troops near Kyiv (which would include Bucha)
2022 April 07: the Human Rights Council votes 33-2 to investigate alleged war crimes of Russian troops near Kyiv (which would include Bucha): https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/un-rights-chief-says-many-ukraine-abuses-may-amount-war-crimes-2022-05-12/ https://archive.ph/10Rl6
Bucha: Noted Liars
Aaron Mate
Jackson Hinkle: clearly suggesting Azov did the Bucha massacre
Jackson Hinkle: clearly suggesting Azov did the Bucha massacre: https://archive.ph/BcvME https://archive.ph/DqjBF
"Anti-imperialist" "Patriotic Socialist" Responses
Haz April 04: supports Russian narrative that Britain blocked UN investigation into Bucha
Haz April 04: supports Russian narrative that Britain blocked UN investigation into Bucha: https://twitter.com/InfraHaz/status/1511104039882301444 https://archive.ph/wip/VAN91 https://twitter.com/InfraHaz/status/1511105695369859073 https://archive.ph/wip/dCMqa
Why did Britain block Russia's request for a UN investigation into the alleged war crimes they are accused of committing at Bucha? The beauty of Western media coverages lies exposed in real time is that it posthumously exonerates the Soviet Union. The same way they're lying about Russia in Ukraine, they also lied about the black legends of the Soviet Union. Now you see how they lie.
Hinkle April 08: supports Russian narrative that Britain blocked UN investigation into Bucha
Hinkle April 08: supports Russian narrative that Britain blocked UN investigation into Bucha: https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1512643147670597632 https://archive.ph/wip/VgjCz
The West learned from their mistakes in Syria. Independent international investigations into alleged Russian war crimes will be too damning for the West. That is why the UK has refused two Russian efforts at the UN to launch an investigation into the Bucha war crimes.
Hinkle April 10: Bucha story was just a distraction from HUNTER BIDEN'S DANGEROUS ZOONOTIC BIOLAB PATHOGEN RESEARCH!!!
Hinkle April 10: Bucha story was just a distraction from HUNTER BIDEN'S DANGEROUS ZOONOTIC BIOLAB PATHOGEN RESEARCH!!! https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1513210626880917504 <> https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1513210928409456645 <>
Everyone stopped talking about the fact that Hunter Biden was funding dangerous zoonotic pathogen research in level 3 Ukrainian biolabs as soon as the bogus allegations of Russian war crimes in Bucha & Kramatorsk hit the headlines.
Hinkle April 06: "When it comes to the Bucha massacre, facts are not the friends of the Ukrainian narrative"
Hinkle April 06: "When it comes to the Bucha massacre, facts are not the friends of the Ukrainian narrative": https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1511854984995872773 https://archive.ph/wip/KeAUM
Hinkle April 05: there's no way Russians killed civilians, they loved each other!
Hinkle April 05: there's no way Russians killed civilians, they loved each other! https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1511495127709061120 <>
Russia supposedly killed civilians in Bucha that they: -Lived in peace with for a month -Did not ever previously engage in combat with -Were distributing food & aid to -Knew we re supporters of Russia (white armbands) -Were peacefully leaving during a withdrawal of the city
Hinkle April 04: satellite photographs are bullshit, you shouldn't trust them
Hinkle April 04: satellite photographs are bullshit, you shouldn't trust them: https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1511187694042247168 <>
Hinkle : those civilians were killed by Ukrainians
Hinkle : those civilians were killed by Ukrainians: https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1513718137862049795 https://web.archive.org/web/20220412073003/https://twitter.com/KimIversenShow/status/1513781352008540163
The civilians had their hands tied with white arm bands. They had Russian military rations. Ukrainian SAFARI forces killed them during their clearing operation targeting Russian saboteurs in Bucha on April 1/2. I hesitate to believe any of these stories without evidence.
Hinkle April 12: there have been war crimes on both sides, but the Russian atrocities in Bucha are "thoroughly debunked"
Hinkle April 12: there have been war crimes on both sides, but the Russian atrocities in Bucha are "thoroughly debunked": https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1513939707079454724 <>
I agree that there have been war crimes committed on both sides. But I do take issue with the alleged Russian atrocities in Bucha which have been thoroughly debunked. Plus the limited evidence we have (most was destroyed by UA) indicates their forces were guilty of war crimes.
Nearby Ukrainian War Crime: Pow Shooting in Dmytrivka, Verified
Ukraine state news UNIAN, 2022 March 30: edited video of ambush with music overtop
Ukraine state news UNIAN, 2022 March 30: edited video of ambush with music overtop: https://t.me/uniannet/42715 https://archive.ph/rr7yW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Independent_Information_Agency
The Georgian legion continues to help Ukrainians in the cleansing of the Kiev region from "liberators".
Ukraine Defense Ministry, 2022 April 2: "Detailed work of Ukrainian defenders in Kyiv region" forced out Dmytrivka occupiers
Oz Katerji, 2022 April 2: "Can confirm Ukrainian armed forces destroyed an armoured convoy of 13 tanks and APCs 48 hours ago near Irpin. Visual confirmation to follow."
Oz Katerji, 2022 April 2: "Can confirm Ukrainian armed forces destroyed an armoured convoy of 13 tanks and APCs 48 hours ago near Irpin. Visual confirmation to follow." https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1510288389530136581 https://archive.ph/giApp
pro-Russian Telegram, 2022 April 4: full video of shooting
NYTimes: 2022 April 4: Ukrainian forces ambush a Russian convoy and appear to execute at least one living prisoner of war, while starting that the prisoners are "not even human"
NYTimes: 2022 April 4: Ukrainian forces ambush a Russian convoy and appear to execute at least one living prisoner of war, while starting that the prisoners are "not even human": https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/06/world/ukraine-russia-war-news#russia-pows-ukraine-executed https://archive.ph/gpZPE#selection-1461.0-1461.73
He s still alive. Film these marauders. Look, he s still alive. He s gasping, a man says as a Russian soldier with a jacket pulled over his head, apparently wounded, is seen still breathing. A soldier then shoots the man twice. After the man keeps moving, the soldier shoots him again, and he stops. At least three other apparent Russian soldiers, including one with an obvious head wound who has his hands tied behind his back, can be seen dead near the victim. All are wearing camouflage, and three have white arm bands commonly worn by Russian troops. Equipment is scattered around them and there are blood stains near each man s head.
Neo-Nazism in the Wagner Group
picture of Dmitry Utkin with SS tattoo, SS rank tattoo, and Nazi eagle tattoo
2016 December 9: picture of Dmitry Utkin next to Vladimir Putin at Heroes of the Fatherland Day, where he received an Order of Courage
2016 December 9: picture of Dmitry Utkin next to Vladimir Putin at Heroes of the Fatherland Day, where he received an Order of Courage: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/chvk-wagner-and-privatisation-of-russian-geopolitics/ https://tass.ru/politika/3875744
picture of Task Force Rusich with a valknut
many pictures of Task Force Rusich with valknuts
post featuring another rune
group posing with valknut
group posing with valknut: https://archive.fo/nfynH
members of the group heiling Hitler
Neo-Nazism in the DPR/DNR Donetsky People's Republic
2022 April 5: DPR leader Denis Pushilin puns an award on soldier Roman Vorobyev, who is wearing a neo-Nazi skull and volknut insignia (typical of the Wagner Group affiliates Task Force Rusich)
2022 April 5: DPR leader Denis Pushilin puns an award on soldier Roman Vorobyev, who is wearing a neo-Nazi skull and volknut insignia (typical of the Wagner Group affiliates Task Force Rusich): https://twitter.com/VolodyaVagner/status/1511367383646187521 https://archive.ph/smEjR https://archive.org/details/dnrleader-denis-pushilin-telegram-post
^ Alexey Milchakov: different person
Neo-Nazism in the Azov Battalion
the Azov Battalion's publishing outfit Plomin is openly promoting neo-Nazi writings, such as Freda's "Disintegration of the System", which writes that "We have nothing to see with the mercantile Europe, with the Europe of plutocratic colonialism: nothing to share. We only have accounts to settle with the Jewish or Judaized Europe"
the Azov Battalion's publishing outfit Plomin is openly promoting neo-Nazi writings, such as Freda's "Disintegration of the System", which writes that "We have nothing to see with the mercantile Europe, with the Europe of plutocratic colonialism: nothing to share. We only have accounts to settle with the Jewish or Judaized Europe": https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/01/22/ukraines-far-right-is-boosting-a-pro-putin-fascist/
the Russian far-right generally opposes Putin for moderation on issues like immigration; some supported Ukraine in the Donbas War
the Russian far-right generally opposes Putin for moderation on issues like immigration; some supported Ukraine in the Donbas War: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/09/04/the-hardcore-russian-neo-nazi-group-that-calls-ukraine-home/
Many Russian far-right nationalists have, perhaps to the surprise of many, been anti-Kremlin and opposed Putin s rule due to their perception of his soft stance on issues like immigration, best seen in the annual Russian March . While a large portion of the Russian far-right was instrumental in fomenting and fighting in the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, some factions of the Russian far-right actually supported the protests on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv that mushroomed into the February 2014 revolution and have found room to operate within Ukraine. This included two of Wotanjugend s leaders, Ivan Mikheev and Alexey Levkin. As Russian and Russian-led forces including a sizable presence of Russian far-right nationalists, namely through the influence of Konstantin Malofeev and Eduard Limonov began war in the Donbas in April 2014, some Wotanjugend members were among Russian far-right nationalists who came to Ukraine to fight with far-right pro-Ukrainian forces, including the Azov Battalion. Mikheev and Levkin, along with other Russian neo-Nazis like Roman Zheleznov, came to Ukraine in late 2014; Levkin and others remain in Ukraine five years later.
Far-Right Beliefs in Ukraine: Not Common
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, received 10.2% of the vote in 2012
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, received 10.2% of the vote in 2012: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, received 4.7% of the vote in 2014
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, received 4.7% of the vote in 2014: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, received 2% of the vote in 2019
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, received 2% of the vote in 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, is currently polling around 4%
Svodoba, the political party succeeding the Ukrainian Nazi party (Social-National Party of Ukraine) and including Azov's political wing, is currently polling around 4%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election
Ukrainian Government Promotions of Far-Right: Frequent
Bellingcat 2019: in 2019, Ukrainian Prime Minister Honcharuk promoted the "Veterans Strong" concert and spoke at it, organized by S14 member Andriy Medvedko, headlined by neo-Nazi band Sokyra Peruna
Bellingcat 2019: in 2019, Ukrainian Prime Minister Honcharuk promoted the "Veterans Strong" concert and spoke at it, organized by S14 member Andriy Medvedko, headlined by neo-Nazi band Sokyra Peruna: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/10/21/how-to-mainstream-neo-nazis-a-lesson-from-ukraines-new-government/
Bellingcat 2019: in 2019, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy invited Azov Battalion leaders and spoke of them as "veterans" in discussing peace talks in the region
Bellingcat 2019: in 2019, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy invited Azov Battalion leaders and spoke of them as "veterans" in discussing peace talks in the region: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/10/21/how-to-mainstream-neo-nazis-a-lesson-from-ukraines-new-government/
Another example of this trend was on display in early October at a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when members of the far-right (including C14 leader Yevhen Karas) were invited to offer their perspective on the war in eastern Ukraine. Azov was also present, being the largest far-right group in Ukraine that also has a regiment in Ukraine s National Guard. Yesterday I met with veterans, Zelenskyy said in early October, National Corps [the Azov movement s political party], Azov, everyone else. A photo from the meeting shows multiple far-right figures in attendance, including C14 s Yevhen Karas and Dmytro Shatrovskyi, head of the Azov-linked Veterans Brotherhood. [....] However, why does Zelenskyy meet with multiple representatives of far-right groups and, moreover, speak of them simply as veterans, discounting the vast majority of Ukraine s veterans who have no involvement in extremist organizations? Why are there multiple members of far-right groups, including people who are openly neo-Nazi, on Ukraine s Ministry of Veterans Affairs public oversight council? Despite the fact that these far-right organizations have negligible popular support and virtually nonexistent electoral power, they are over-represented among veterans rights groups, including in meetings directly with Ukraine s President. As the veterans concert shows, these issues are symptoms of a much larger problem relating to the far-right s exploitation of veterans issues as they continue to have success mainstreaming themselves in Ukrainian politics and society.
Bellingcat 2020: US conservatives are fighting against LGBT rights in Ukraine
Ukrainian Government Infiltration/Appointments of Far-Right: Deep
Freedom House considers far-right extremists like Azov to be a threat to democracy in Ukraine
Freedom House notes that known far-right extremists have received major appointsments to the police and military of Ukraine
Freedom House notes that known far-right extremists have received major appointsments to the police and military of Ukraine: https://freedomhouse.org/report/analytical-brief/2018/far-right-extremism-threat-ukrainian-democracy
Bellingcat 2019: the Ukrainian Veterans Ministry is dominated by far-right group members; this led an Azov battalion member to speak to a conference including the top US diplomat to Ukraine
Bellingcat 2019: the Ukrainian Veterans Ministry is dominated by far-right group members; this led an Azov battalion member to speak to a conference including the top US diplomat to Ukraine: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/11/11/ukraines-ministry-of-veterans-affairs-embraced-the-far-right-with-consequences-to-the-u-s/
Bellingcat 2019: the Ukrainian government gave funds to an Azov movement linked Youth Corps for "national-patriotic education projects"
Bellingcat 2019: the Ukrainian government gave funds to an Azov movement linked Youth Corps for "national-patriotic education projects": https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/07/16/ukrainian-far-right-extremists-receive-state-funds-to-teach-patriotism/
Brexit
brexit has reduced british GDP growth by about 1% per year
Thatcher and Neoliberalism
Thatcherite Ideology, Housing Tenure and Crime: The Socio-spatial Consequences of the Right to Buy for Domestic Property Crime
Thatcherite Ideology, Housing Tenure and Crime: The Socio-spatial Consequences of the Right to Buy for Domestic Property Crime https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/56/6/1235/2415095 [unformatted]
gini coefficient
gini coefficient: [unformatted]
gdp growth
gdp growth: [unformatted]
PIS is Poland's conservative party: PIS is seizing control of the state media
PIS is seizing control of the state media: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/07/poland-president-signs-bill-putting-state-media-under-government-control: Poland s president has signed into law a bill handing the conservative government control of state media, despite concern elsewhere in the EU and condemnation from rights watchdogs. [....] Under the new law, senior figures in public radio and television will be appointed and sacked by the treasury minister, and will no longer be hired by the National Broadcasting Council. Under the legislation current managers and supervisory board members of Poland s public broadcasters will be fired with immediate effect.
PIS is seizing control of the independent judiciary
PIS is seizing control of the independent judiciary: https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-20/poland-steps-away-democracy-and-eu-latest-judiciary-reforms: Lawmakers in the lower house of parliament, which is controlled by the ruling far-right Law and Justice Party (PiS), have passed a bill that would force 83 of the nation s top judges to resign and will give the governing party control over who replaces them. In Poland, the Supreme Court is not only the final court of appeal for all criminal and civil cases, but also the body that rules on the validity of elections which is exactly what concerns the EU and political opponents.
PIS is trying to ban *all* abortions, even for safety
PIS is trying to ban *all* abortions, even for safety: https://jacobinmag.com/2018/03/poland-black-protests-womens-strike-abortion-pis: It wasn t until 2016, when the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS), led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, introduced a bill that would have made abortion completely illegal that the women s movement was able to break out of this isolation. Abortion is legal in Poland only in three cases: when pregnancy is the result of rape, when the fetus shows risks of severe damage or illness, and when the life of the woman is endangered. Unfortunately, even under these conditions women often do not obtain permission to terminate pregnancies, which leads them either to illegal abortions, in Poland or abroad, or to face serious risks to give birth anyways. Official statistics count only around 100 legal abortions per year in Poland; but, according to feminist organizations, some 140,000 illegal ones are additionally carried out. The PiS bill would have made abortion illegal even in these exceptional cases. Additionally, it would have criminalized not only women who sought abortions, but their doctors and anyone else who assisted them, allowing them to be sentenced to up to two years of jail time.
PIS is trying to criminalize discussion of Poland's part in the Holocaust
PIS is trying to criminalize discussion of Poland's part in the Holocaust: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/poland-antisemitism-nationalism-holocaust: Under the guise of defending the good name of The Polish Nation the bill opens the way to criminalising anyone who seeks to reveal dark chapters of Polish history, such as antisemitic pogroms before, during and after the war. But this is a veneer. What is truly at stake is not Poland s reputation, but Polish nationalist rightwing tradition. The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) makes no secret of the fact that it is part of this tradition. The language and ideas of PiS leaders, as well as their policies towards refugees, minorities and political opposition, draw directly from the rhetoric and strategy of Polish nationalism in the first half of the 20th century. [It's already been used for this purpose: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/polish-group-files-suit-against-argentina-newspaper-over-holocaust-story ]
PIS supported thousands of far-right marchers with racist slogans under falangist banners
PIS supported thousands of far-right marchers with racist slogans under falangist banners: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/12/white-europe-60000-nationalists-march-on-polands-independence-day: Tens of thousands of nationalist demonstrators marched through Warsaw at the weekend to mark Poland s independence day, throwing red-smoke bombs and carrying banners with slogans such as white Europe of brotherly nations . Police estimated 60,000 people took part in Saturday s event, in what experts say was one of the biggest gathering of far-right activists in Europe in recent years. Demonstrators with faces covered chanted Pure Poland, white Poland! and Refugees get out! [....] TVP, which reflects the conservative government s line, called it a great march of patriots , and in its broadcasts described the event as one that drew mostly ordinary Poles expressing their love of Poland, not extremists.
But Weren't the Nazis the National **Socialist** German **Workers'** Party?
Yes. However, as he stated in this 1938 speech, Hitler was **explicitly** not a socialist in the "economically left and socially left" sense (
Yes. However, as he stated in this 1938 speech, Hitler was **explicitly** not a socialist in the "economically left and socially left" sense ( https://books.google.com/books?id=PxZoAAAAMAAJ&q=Our+adopted+term+%27Socialist%27+has+nothing+to+do+with+Marxian+Socialism.+Marxism+is+anti-property;+true+Socialism+is+not ):
'Socialist' I define from the word 'social; meaning in the main social equity . A Socialist is one who serves the common good without giving up his individuality or personality or the product of his personal efficiency. **Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true socialism is not.** Marxism places no value on the individual, or individual effort, of efficiency; true Socialism values the individual and encourages him in individual efficiency, at the same time holding that his interests as an individual must be in consonance with those of the community. All great inventions, discoveries, achievements were first the product of an individual brain. It is charged against me that I am against property, that I am an atheist. Both charges are false.
But Weren't the Nazis the National **Socialist** German **Workers'** Party?
Yes. However, as he stated in this 1935 speech, Hitler saw many differences between his ideology and the USSR's
Yes. However, as he stated in this 1935 speech, Hitler saw many differences between his ideology and the USSR's: https://books.google.com/books?id=r_-htwAACAAJ&dq=hitler+may+21+1935+speech
National Socialism is a doctrine that has reference exclusively to the German people. Bolshevism lays stress on international mission.
National Socialism fights for the reconciliation and consequent adjustment of the differences in life and the union of all for common benefits. Bolshevism teaches the overcoming of an alleged class rule by the dictatorship of the power of a different class.
As National Socialists, our hearts are full with admiration and respect for the great achievements of the past, not only in our own people but also far beyond. We are happy to belong to an European cultural community that has so tremendously embossed today's world with a stamp of its mind. Bolshevism rejects this cultural achievement of mankind, claiming that has found the beginning of the real cultural and human history in the year of birth of Marxism.
We, National Socialists, do not want to be of the same opinion as our church organizations in this or that organizational question. But we never want a lack of belief in religion or any faith, and do not wish that our churches become club-houses or cinemas. Bolshevism teaches the godlessness and acts accordingly.
We National Socialists see in private property a higher level of human economic development that according to the differences in performance controls the management of what has been accomplished enabling and guaranteeing the advantage of a higher standard of living for everyone. Bolshevism destroys not only private property but also private initiative and the readiness to shoulder responsibility.
But Didn't the Nazis and the Socialists Both Use Red?
The Nazi flag colors (black, white, red) come from the imperial German flag colors (black, white, red). For example, the nationalist imperial German propaganda song "Stolz weht die Flagge schwarz-wei -rot" (The Flag Proudly Waves Black-White-Red)
The Nazi flag colors (black, white, red) come from the imperial German flag colors (black, white, red). For example, the nationalist imperial German propaganda song "Stolz weht die Flagge schwarz-wei -rot" (The Flag Proudly Waves Black-White-Red) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolz_weht_die_Flagge_schwarz-wei%C3%9F-rot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIs3S6ckTmw was explicitly mirrored in Nazi propaganda song "Deutschland du Land der Treue" in the lines "Hakenkreuzfahnen schwarz, weiss, und rot" (Swastika flags black, white, and red) http://soldatenlieder.blogspot.com/2012/03/deutschland-du-land-der-treue-heil.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cvvFm2Vi6M. Moreover, the use of red in Nazi propaganda was an intentional anti-left tactic, as Hitler stated in Mein Kampf, 1922, Book 2 Vol 2 p. 270: http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv2ch07.html "We chose red for our posters after particular and careful deliberation, our intention being to irritate the Left, so as to arouse their attention and tempt them to come to our meetings -- if only in order to break them up -- so that in this way we got a chance of talking to the people."
Nazi Germany Anti-Worker Effects: National Income Share
under Nazi Germany (deffo socialists btw), the capital share of national income increased from .25 pre-depression to .325; under FDR (halfhearted social democrat) it decreased from .325 pre-depression to .225
under Nazi Germany (deffo socialists btw), the capital share of national income increased from .25 pre-depression to .325; under FDR (halfhearted social democrat) it decreased from .325 pre-depression to .225 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/capitalism-and-nazism/
between 1932 and 1938, income from wages and salaries grew 66% while income from capital grew 146% (220% faster)
between 1932 and 1938, income from wages and salaries grew 66% while income from capital grew 146% (220% faster) https://books.google.com/books?id=fpFbuCKOLKwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT451#v=onepage&f=false
Nazi Germany Anti-Worker Effects: Income Inequality
under Nazi Germany (deffo socialists btw), the top 1% share of fiscal income increased from 11% to 16% (1933-1938); under FDR (halfhearted social democrat) it remained at 16% (1932-1938) or decreased to 12% (1932-1944)
under Nazi Germany (deffo socialists btw), the top 1% share of fiscal income increased from 11% to 16% (1933-1938); under FDR (halfhearted social democrat) it remained at 16% (1932-1938) or decreased to 12% (1932-1944): https://wid.world/country/germany/
Nazi Germany Anti-Worker Effects: Wages
between 1932 and 1944, nominal weekly wages increased just 44% in Germany compared to 63% in Britain and 160% in the USA
between 1932 and 1944, nominal weekly wages increased just 44% in Germany compared to 63% in Britain and 160% in the USA: https://www.coll.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2009_18online.pdf
between 1932 and 1938, real wages barely moved in Germany and Britain; in the USA, real wages increased 50%
between 1932 and 1938, real wages barely moved in Germany and Britain; in the USA, real wages increased 50%: https://www.nber.org/chapters/c2510.pdf
hourly wages *declined* for both skilled and unskilled workers from the Great Depression to the Nazi era
hourly wages *declined* for both skilled and unskilled workers from the Great Depression to the Nazi era: https://books.google.com/books?id=fpFbuCKOLKwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT451#v=onepage&f=false
Nazi Germany Anti-Worker Effects: Disoosable Income
even more than wages, take-home pay declined under Nazi Germany
National Socialist People's Welfare
because the Nazis consolidated local and state programs, they did increase the federal German budget for social spending
because the Nazis consolidated local and state programs, they did increase the federal German budget for social spending: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_People%27s_Welfare In three budgetary years, the funds required by Germany's social welfare programs had more than doubled from 640.4 million Reichmarks in 1938 to 1.395 billion Reichmarks by 1941.[12]
Fascist Italy: Capitalist Winners, Labor Losers
italy reduced wages (and utterly failed to replicate FDR's success)
italy reduced wages (and utterly failed to replicate FDR's success): http://www.gustavopiga.it/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/PaperGiordanoPigaTrovato_November2011.pdf President Roosevelt, as well as raising prices to favor industrialists, also increased workers bargaining power and, therefore, their wages. The Fascist government, on the contrary, being more attentive to industrialists concerns, on the one hand fought the drop in consumer prices, but on the other, abolished most of the workers bargaining power and intervened systematically in cutting wages.
But Didn't the Nazis Seize Control of Industry?
Yes and no. The Nazis arose during the Great Depression. During this time, **all** Western nations (including the Nazis) used some nationalization and regulation to stablize their economies and later to prepare for war. However, the Nazis **privatized** previously-nationalized industries. (In fact, the term "privatization" was coined to describe Nazi economic policies
Yes and no. The Nazis arose during the Great Depression. During this time, **all** Western nations (including the Nazis) used some nationalization and regulation to stablize their economies and later to prepare for war. However, the Nazis **privatized** previously-nationalized industries. (In fact, the term "privatization" was coined to describe Nazi economic policies http://www.ub.edu/graap/JEP.pdf.) As Germa Bel writes: http://www.ub.edu/gim/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/EHR_bel.pdf: "The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception; the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. **Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in the Western capitalist countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s.** Privatization in Nazi Germany was also unique in transferring to private hands the delivery of public services previously provided by government. The firms and the services transferred to private ownership belonged to diverse sectors. **Privatization was part of an intentional policy with multiple objectives and was not ideologically driven.** As in many recent privatizations, particularly within the European Union, strong financial restrictions were a central motivation. In addition, privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party."
But Didn't the Fascists Seize Control of Industry?
No. In fact, Fascist Italy engaged in the first large-scale privatization in modern Western history: As Germa Bel writes
No. In fact, Fascist Italy engaged in the first large-scale privatization in modern Western history: As Germa Bel writes: http://www.ub.edu/graap/bel_Italy_fascist.pdf "Italy s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. The government privatized the state monopoly of match sale, eliminated the State monopoly on life insurances, sold most of the State-owned telephone networks and services to private firms, reprivatized the largest metal machinery producer, and awarded concessions to private firms to build and operate motorways. These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world. While ideological considerations may have had a certain influence, privatization was used mainly as a political tool to build confidence among industrialists and to increase support for the government and the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Privatization also contributed to balancing the budget, which was the core objective of Fascist economic policy in its first phase."
But Didn't the Nazis Control Industry Indirectly and Destroy Private Property?
Yes and no. The Nazis arose during the Great Depression. During this time, **all** Western nations (including the Nazis) used some nationalization and regulation to stablize their economies and later to prepare for war. However, the Nazis believed that private businesses were more efficient than state planning. Thus, business was heavily involved in the Nazis' planning processes
Yes and no. The Nazis arose during the Great Depression. During this time, **all** Western nations (including the Nazis) used some nationalization and regulation to stablize their economies and later to prepare for war. However, the Nazis believed that private businesses were more efficient than state planning. Thus, business was heavily involved in the Nazis' planning processes https://libcom.org/files/Daniel%20Guerin-Fascism%20and%20Big%20Business-Pathfinder%20Press%20(2000).pdf and private property and the profit motive both remained solidly intact, as Buchheim and Scherner write: ( http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Economic-History/buchheim-041020.pdf): "Private property in the industry of the Third Reich is often considered a mere nominal provision without much substance. However, that is not correct, because **firms, despite the rationing and licensing activities of the state, still had ample scope to devise their own production and investment profiles.** Even regarding war-related projects, freedom of contract was generally respected; instead of using power, the state offered firms a number of contract options to choose from. **There were several motives behind this attitude of the regime, among them the conviction that private property provided important incentives for increasing efficiency.**"
But Didn't the Nazis Set Official Wages?
Yes and no. Prior to the Nazis, the Weimar Republic (under socialist influence) created collective wage agreements across industries in hopes of preventing "cut-throat" competition for labor. In contrast, the Nazi official wage rates were far lower than Weimar wage rates, could be overruled (allowing lower pay) for individual companies by the DAF's "labor trustees", and disallowed the possibility of collective bargaining by the workers.
Yes and no. Prior to the Nazis, the Weimar Republic (under socialist influence) created collective wage agreements across industries in hopes of preventing "cut-throat" competition for labor. In contrast, the Nazi official wage rates were far lower than Weimar wage rates, could be overruled (allowing lower pay) for individual companies by the DAF's "labor trustees", and disallowed the possibility of collective bargaining by the workers. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003232928501400101
But Didn't the Nazis Create the "Labor Front"?
Yes. The Nazis established the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF). To establish the DAF, the Nazis destroyed non-DAF trade unions as "leftist" and seized their funds
Yes. The Nazis established the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF). To establish the DAF, the Nazis destroyed non-DAF trade unions as "leftist" and seized their funds https://www.teachers.org.uk/files/trade-unionists-leaflet.pdf. In name, the DAF was intended to mediate conflicts between businessowners and workers. In practice, the Nazis used the DAF to decrease the worker power and to trap workers in their current place of employment, as William Shirer notes: https://books.google.com/books?id=fpFbuCKOLKwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT449#v=onepage&f=false
But Didn't the Nazis Create "Strength Through Joy", Kraft Durch Freude?
Yes. KdF was a large vacation program established to sell the working class on Nazism and to boost German tourism
Yes. KdF was a large vacation program established to sell the working class on Nazism and to boost German tourism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy; in practice, it was heavily involved in regimenting the leisure time of workers towards Nazi goals rather than allowing them freedom: https://books.google.com/books?id=fpFbuCKOLKwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT453#v=onepage&q&f=false
But Didn't the Nazis Create the "Peoples Car", Volkswagen?
As Willaim Shirer notes, Volkswagen was a Nazi swindle
Rich Were More Likely to Vote for Hitler
Simon 2021: summary of book: wealthier districts were more likely to vote for Hitler, likely because they bought into the fear campaign against the Communists (and somewhat the Socialists)
Simon 2021: summary of book: wealthier districts were more likely to vote for Hitler, likely because they bought into the fear campaign against the Communists (and somewhat the Socialists): https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-hitler-nazi-fascism/ https://archive.ph/l0zca
In Berlin, the highest levels of support for the National Socialists came from the upper- and upper-middle-class districts. Accounting for the Jewish vote and the Catholics who voted for the Center Party, Hitler s Nazis commanded some 60 percent of the vote in those districts nearly twice the national average. On the other hand, the lower-middle-class and working-class districts gave Hitler s party a substantial minority of their votes, somewhere between one-quarter and three-eighths. The trend in Berlin was repeated in Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, Hanover, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, and Mannheim, with slight variations. Again and again, Hamilton shows below-average support for Hitler in working-class districts, and higher support in upper-middle-class and wealthy ones. There were pockets of rabid support for the Nazis in rural areas. But what we see repeated in chapter after chapter of Who Voted for Hitler? is the disproportionate support for Hitler from the well-heeled districts, motivated by their sense that Hitler would be their weapon against Communism; and because the Nazis had also successfully nurtured a covert anti-Semitism among the upper classes. Working class-neighborhoods were split more evenly, drawn to the Communists or Social Democrats, not strongly anti-Semitic, though susceptible certainly to the Nazi s organizing exertions.
Simon 2021: haunting comparison
Simon 2021: haunting comparison: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-hitler-nazi-fascism/ https://archive.ph/l0zca
A most impactful provision of the Versailles treaty, it turns out, was to drastically reduce the size of the German military, pushing out hundreds of thousands of young men, providing these men with one very substantial additional grievance and then injecting them directly into civilian life, as Hamilton writes. A pithy and breathtaking comparison might be drawn here with the decommissioning of the rebel army at the end of the only other protracted war of the prior century, which was America s Civil War, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilante groups that followed it.
Challenging the traditional belief that Hitler's supporters were largely from the lower middle class, Richard F. Hamilton analyzes Nazi electoral successes by turning to previously untapped sources--urban voting records. This examination of data from a series of elections in fourteen of the largest German cities shows that in most of them the vote for the Nazis varied directly with the class level of the district, with the wealthiest districts giving it the strongest support. Hamilton 1982
Challenging the traditional belief that Hitler's supporters were largely from the lower middle class, Richard F. Hamilton analyzes Nazi electoral successes by turning to previously untapped sources--urban voting records. This examination of data from a series of elections in fourteen of the largest German cities shows that in most of them the vote for the Nazis varied directly with the class level of the district, with the wealthiest districts giving it the strongest support. Hamilton 1982: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/884013314 https://u1lib.org/book/12228860/621031 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/976579698958143498/hamilton1982.pdf
Economic Impacts: Unemployed Protestants Voted Communist and Socialist-Centrist; Self-Employed Protestants Voted Nazi ("petit Bourgeois" and Rural Vote); Catholics Mostly Maintained Their Old Voting Patterns
King et al 2008: groups shown below
King et al 2008: high-unemployment and middle-unemployment self-employed (mostly business owners) Protestants (SHP, SMP) and low-unemployment domestic-worker (mostly agricultural workers) Protestants (DLP) were more likely to vote for the Nazis
King et al 2008: high-unemployment, unemployed Cats (UHC) and Prots (UHP) and high-unemployment, blue collar Prots (BHP) were more likely to vote for Communists
King et al 2008: among Protestants, the 1932 Nazi vote mostly increased due to conversion from the far right, the liberals, new voters; these effects seem mostly independent of unemployment; Catholics mostly maintained their old voting patterns, except for Liberals, who split almost entirely toward the Nazis (low and middle unemployment) or evenly Nazi and {SPD, KPD} (high unemployment)
Education Professionals Were More Likely to Have Nazi Membership
Jarausch and Arminger 1989: teachers were roughly twice as likely as the general populace to join the Nazi Party; university faculty ("docents") were more likely to have joined the party before 1933, and young university faculty rushed into the party after 1933
Jarausch and Arminger 1989: teachers were roughly twice as likely as the general populace to join the Nazi Party; university faculty ("docents") were more likely to have joined the party before 1933, and young university faculty rushed into the party after 1933: https://www.jstor.org/stable/204832 https://sci-hub.st/10.2307/204832 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/976592714789445662/jarausch1989.pdf
Education and Nazi Support
Unger-Alvi 2022: among political elites, greater rates of university education correlate with greater support for the Nazis
Petit Bourgeois: Complicated Evidence, Suggested Solution
Unger-Alvi 2022: half of the Nazi Party membership in 1933 was from the middle class; however, the voter base of the Nazis was likely mostly ideologically nationalists or farmers and petit bourgeois economically threatened by the Great Depression
Unger-Alvi 2022: half of the Nazi Party membership in 1933 was from the middle class; however, the voter base of the Nazis was likely mostly ideologically nationalists or farmers and petit bourgeois economically threatened by the Great Depression: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/johs.12370 https://sci-hub.st/10.1111/johs.12370 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/976598762896130059/unger-alvi.pdf
Unger-Alvi 2022: regional leaders (Gauleiters) and Reichstag deputies of the Nazis were mostly from the lower-middle, middle, and upper classes
Unger-Alvi 2022: Nazi deputies were fairly similar to deputies from rightist and centrist parties, but were unlike socialist and communist parties, which were dominated by working class electeds
Unger-Alvi 2022: Nazi deputies were fairly similar to deputies from rightist and centrist parties, but were unlike socialist and communist parties, which were dominated by working class electeds: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/johs.12370 https://sci-hub.st/10.1111/johs.12370 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/976598762896130059/unger-alvi.pdf
Political Elites and Bourgeois Were More Conservative and More Likely to Support the Nazis
Unger-Alvi 2022: political elites in Weimar leaned closer to conservatives, nationalists, and Nazis, which may have made them quicker to work with the Nazi party
Unger-Alvi 2022: political elites in Weimar leaned closer to conservatives, nationalists, and Nazis, which may have made them quicker to work with the Nazi party: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/johs.12370 https://sci-hub.st/10.1111/johs.12370 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/976598762896130059/unger-alvi.pdf elites: more than 2000 German politicians, industrialists, diplomats, political writers, academics, high state officials, and important journalists
Accordingly, this paper shows that a surprising number of early Nazi elites in the Weimar Republic were highly educated members of the German bourgeoisie.
sociological similarities between Nazi leaders and the democratic elites of the Weimar Republic may help us explain the fast transformation of the German political system into a right-wing dictatorship
Nazi Protests
Caprettini 2022
German Documents
1941: the Jager report explicitly states that 137346 people, 135391 of them Jews (57338 Jewish men, 48592 Jewish women, 29461 Jewish children) were killed by the SS between 2 July 1941 to 25 November 1941
1941: the Jager report explicitly states that 137346 people, 135391 of them Jews (57338 Jewish men, 48592 Jewish women, 29461 Jewish children) were killed by the SS between 2 July 1941 to 25 November 1941: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4ger_Report http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2012/04/jager-report.html http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/DocJager.htm
1941-1942: numerous reports from the Einsatzgruppen document the killings of Jews
1941-1942: numerous reports from the Einsatzgruppen document the killings of Jews: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen_reports
1942: Himmler's Report 51, "Report to the Fuehrer on fighting against gangs", explicitly states that 363211 Jews were killed in southern Russia, Ukraine, and Bialystok district
1942: Himmler's Report 51, "Report to the Fuehrer on fighting against gangs", explicitly states that 363211 Jews were killed in southern Russia, Ukraine, and Bialystok district: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandenbek%C3%A4mpfung
1942: the Wannsee Protocols outline Nazi plans for "the evacuation of the Jews to the East"; "evacuation" was a common metaphor for extermination
1942: Document 501-PS describes the benefits and drawbacks of gas vans currently used for executions
1942: Document 501-PS describes the benefits and drawbacks of gas vans currently used for executions: https://phdn.org/archives/www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gasvan1.htm
1942: a letter about "securing skulls of Jewish Bolshevik Commissars for the purpose of scientific research"
1942: a letter about "securing skulls of Jewish Bolshevik Commissars for the purpose of scientific research" https://phdn.org/archives/www.mazal.org/NO-series/NO-0085-000.htm
1943: the Katzmann Report documents the killing of 434,329 Jews in Galicia
1943-44: numerous reports by Odilo Globo nik document the deportation and seizure of goods involved in the Holocaust
1943-44: numerous reports by Odilo Globo nik document the deportation and seizure of goods involved in the Holocaust: https://phdn.org/archives/www.mazal.org/NO-series/A-NO-Index-002.htm
document discussing various extermination-related experiments by the Nazis
document discussing various extermination-related experiments by the Nazis: https://phdn.org/archives/www.mazal.org/NO-series/NO-0065-000.htm
Treblinka
article about archaeology at Treblinka
yes, there have been archaeological studies of Treblinka -- using radar
yes, there have been archaeological studies of Treblinka -- using radar: https://amp.livescience.com/44443-treblinka-archaeological-excavation.html https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207418300189 To address this issue, an historical and archaeological project began at Treblinka in 2007. Staff from the Centre of Archaeology undertook non-invasive fieldwork at both Treblinka I and II in 2010, 2012 and 2013 in order to identify the locations of the camp boundaries, mass graves and gas chambers; aims that were successfully achieved [2], [3], [12]. This work involved walkover survey, topographic survey (with DGPS and a Total Station) and geophysical survey. Excavations were also undertaken in 2013 which confirmed the location of one of the gas chamber buildings and identified a number of personal belongings. During this fieldwork season, and a subsequent season in 2017, the methodology described below was employed in order to further characterize the terrain of, and evidence contained within, both camps.
yes, there have been archaeological studies of Treblinka -- using radar
yes, there have been archaeological studies of Treblinka -- using radar: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10761-017-0432-3 The excavation of Trench 4 confirmed that the 22 15 m anomaly in the GPR results did in fact represent the foundations of the first gas chambers built by the Nazis at Treblinka (known as the old gas chambers), which existed at a depth of 0.85 m below the ground. [....] Dentures, and gold and silver teeth were also found along with a considerable amount of fragmented human remains, some of which exhibited evidence of burning and some that did not. All of these different types of material traces were commingled, confirming the nature of destruction afforded to the gas chambers in autumn 1943 and the heavily disturbed nature of the ground exhibited in the GPR results.
Motivations
in total, the Nazis received about $143-430 billion in assets alone from the extermination of the Jews
in total, the Nazis received about $143-430 billion in assets alone from the extermination of the Jews: http://jcpa.org/article/restitution-of-holocaust-era-assets-promises-and-reality/
The Holocaust Is Not Separate From Western Civilization
askHistorians post
askHistorians post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4vgeki/marxist_historical_analyses_of_the_holocaust/d5zgkqz/ The historical understanding of Nazism and the Holocaust as accidents of history or part of a totalitarian trend averse to liberal, capitalist development are part of hegemonic discourse of portraying the current capitalist order as the best possible of all worlds and thus making them out to be the natural and unimporvable state of things often, consciously or unconsciously, aimed at squashing any kind of resistance against Capitalist hegemony. Understanding Nazism and the Holocaust as linked to factors inherent in capitalism racism, colonialism, imperialism is act of challenging the hegemony on the basis of its historical narrative. By historically rigorously pointing to these explicit links, a direct or indirect critique of the status quo, which in its most extreme forms can bring forward the catastrophe of Nazism, the hegemonic narrative is challenged and a blow of resistance is delivered.
askHistorians post
askHistorians post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4tln3x/steve_king_the_contributions_of_western_civ/d5ko61i/ Within historiography of the subject, the interesting thing to see is that the first two I mentioned are pretty much dead as of now and nobody would use them anymore. Generational and paradigm shifts as well as careful examination of the evidence have left us with only the latter two that understand Nazism as a product of modernity rather than it aberration or it being outside of modernity. Totalitarianism also doesn't hold up to historical examination, which leaves us with a variation of the last explanation, which is also in my opinion the most convincing.
Anti-Denial Books
Zimmerman 1999: Body Disposal at Auschwitz: The End of Holocaust Denial: argues in detail that the deaths at Auschwitz cannot be explained by alternate causes and their body disposal must be explained by holocaust deniers
Zimmerman 1999: Body Disposal at Auschwitz: The End of Holocaust Denial: argues in detail that the deaths at Auschwitz cannot be explained by alternate causes and their body disposal must be explained by holocaust deniers: https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/body-disposal/
Pressac 1989: Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers: A former holocaust revisionist explains why and how Auschwitz killed its victims (though his preferred death toll is 60% of the accepted estimate)
Word Appearance
claim: "6 million" and "Holocaust" were frequently used to prepare people for the "Holocaust lie"
claim: "6 million" and "Holocaust" were frequently used to prepare people for the "Holocaust lie": https://archive.fo/xy9J0 https://nanomatic.fi/pdf/6million.pdf
"6 million" was frequently used in articles unrelated to Jews. for example, the Library of Congress' newpaper archive documents 22,000 results including "6" and "million" between 1839 and 1930
1912: 5 million Jews "treated as Pariahs" in Russia
1915: 3 million Jews "homeless and starving" in Poland and Galicia
1915: 2 million Jews "have become beggars" in Poland and Galicia
1916: 10 million Jews "in danger of starvation" in west Russia, Galicia, and the Balkans
1916: 10 million Jews "in danger of starvation" in west Russia, Galicia, and the Balkans: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84031081/1916-01-25/ed-1/seq-6/
1918: 3 million Jews "dying of starvation and disease in the war stricken countries"
1918: 3 million Jews "dying of starvation and disease in the war stricken countries" https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85035720/1918-07-13/ed-2/seq-5/
1919: 3 million Jews "starving" in Eastern European war zones
1920: the Poles are "trying to exterminate" 3 million Jews
Millions of Germans
Hun War Losses 6,873,410
6 million Germans killed
6 million Germans killed
6 million Germans killed
6 million Germans killed
6 million Germans killed
6 million Germans killed
Other Old Newspaper Fun
ISIS???
Scott's Emulsion
Where Are the Bodies?
there are hundreds of photographs of mass graves; here is a famous one
the Nazis explicitly attempted to hide bodies. the most-often used method was to burn corpses and grind down the bones
the Nazis explicitly attempted to hide bodies. the most-often used method was to burn corpses and grind down the bones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderaktion_1005
Typhus at Auschwitz
Zimmerman 1999: in 1943 the Nazis installed 56 crematoria capable burning 4756 bodies per day (or 145k per month) despite the entire camp population being just 30,000; the maximum camp population was just 90,000 in summer 1944; over its 4-year lifetime, Auschwitz received 1.3 million prisoners, of whom 1.1 million died; therefore, holocaust deniers need to explain about 1 million extra deaths in a population of 1.3 million people
Zimmerman 1999: in 1943 the Nazis installed 56 crematoria capable burning 4756 bodies per day (or 145k per month) despite the entire camp population being just 30,000; the maximum camp population was just 90,000 in summer 1944; over its 4-year lifetime, Auschwitz received 1.3 million prisoners, of whom 1.1 million died; therefore, holocaust deniers need to explain about 1 million extra deaths in a population of 1.3 million people: https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/body-disposal/
Zimmerman 1999: the Auschwitz Death Books record the deaths of 68864 registered prisoners from August 1941-December 1943; just 2060 of these (or 2060/68864=2.9%) were from typhus
Zimmerman 1999: the Auschwitz Death Books record the deaths of 68864 registered prisoners from August 1941-December 1943; just 2060 of these (or 2060/68864=2.9%) were from typhus: https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/body-disposal/
Zimmerman 1999: the Auschwitz Death Books record the deaths of 68864 registered prisoners from August 1941-December 1943; over 25000 of these (or 25000/68864=36%) were from heart conditions and 44000 of these (or 44000/68864=64%) were among prisoners below age 40; neither of these results are plausible unless the camp authorities were forging death certificates, which multiple testimonies confirm
Zimmerman 1999: the Auschwitz Death Books record the deaths of 68864 registered prisoners from August 1941-December 1943; over 25000 of these (or 25000/68864=36%) were from heart conditions and 44000 of these (or 44000/68864=64%) were among prisoners below age 40; neither of these results are plausible unless the camp authorities were forging death certificates, which multiple testimonies confirm: https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/body-disposal/
Leuchter Report
testimony from lab manager James Roth
testimony from lab manager James Roth: http://www.errolmorris.com/film/mrd_transcript.html I don't think the Leuchter results have any meaning. There's nothing in any of our data that says those surfaces were exposed or not. Even after I got off the stand, I didn't know where the samples came from. I didn't know which samples were which. And it was only at lunch that I found out, really, what the case involved. Hindsight being 20/20, the test was not the correct one to have been used for the analysis. He presented us with rock samples anywhere from the size of your thumb up to half the size of your fist. **We broke them up with a hammer so that we could get a sub-sample; we placed it in a flask, add concentrated sulfuric acid.** It undergoes a reaction that produces a red-colored solution. It is the intensity of this red color that we can relate with cyanide concentration. You have to look at what happens to cyanide when it reacts with a wall. Where does it go? How far does it go? **Cyanide is a surface reaction. It's probably not going to penetrate more than 10 microns. Human hair is 100 microns in diameter. Crush this sample up, I have just diluted that sample 10,000; 100,000 times. If you're going to go look for it, you're going to look on the surface only.** There's no reason to go deep, because it's not going to be there. Which was the exposed surface? I didn't even have any idea. **That's like analyzing paint on a wall by analyzing the timber that's behind it.** If they go in with blinders on, they will see what they want to see. What was he really trying to do? What was he trying to prove?
Holocaust Denial: Red Cross Death Toll Statistics
these reports were not published directly by the ICRC, but were actually published by the Bad Arolsen special registry office [Sonderstandesamt Bad Arolsen (SBA)]; the SBA mostly received its information from the International Tracing Service (ITS), which was run by the ICRC from 1955 to 2012 and is dedicated to providing death certificates requested by families of those killed in concentration and death camps with certified death cases [beurkundeten Sterbef lle], meaning cases where the person's death was actually recorded (most death camp killings were unrecorded, many camp records were destroyed, and not all families survived or requested certificates)
these reports were not published directly by the ICRC, but were actually published by the Bad Arolsen special registry office [Sonderstandesamt Bad Arolsen (SBA)]; the SBA mostly received its information from the International Tracing Service (ITS), which was run by the ICRC from 1955 to 2012 and is dedicated to providing death certificates requested by families of those killed in concentration and death camps with certified death cases [beurkundeten Sterbef lle], meaning cases where the person's death was actually recorded (most death camp killings were unrecorded, many camp records were destroyed, and not all families survived or requested certificates): http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#redcrossstats https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderstandesamt_Bad_Arolsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arolsen_Archives_-_International_Center_on_Nazi_Persecution
the ICRC confirmed this in 1975 in a letter written by Francoise Perret: "The figures cited by the author of the [Holocaust denial ]booklet are based upon statistics falsely attributed to us, evidently for the purpose of giving them credibility, despite the fact that we never publish information of this kind"; "Unfortunately, our delegates were not able to enter the camps until the very end of the war."
the ICRC confirmed this in 1975 in a letter written by Francoise Perret: "The figures cited by the author of the [Holocaust denial ]booklet are based upon statistics falsely attributed to us, evidently for the purpose of giving them credibility, despite the fact that we never publish information of this kind"; "Unfortunately, our delegates were not able to enter the camps until the very end of the war.": the "300,000" figure is referring to an erroneous article written by a Swiss holocaust denier
the ICRC confirmed this again in 1978 with an official publication decrying "false propaganda"
the ICRC confirmed this again in 1978 with an official publication decrying "false propaganda": https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322X.1978.9969431 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/0031322X.1978.9969431
Consequently the ICRC considers it must make clear the fact that it has never published or even compiled statistics of this kind which are being falsely attributed to it. The work of the ICRC is to help war victims, not to count them. In any case, how could its delegates have obtained data for such statistics? They were able to enter only a few concentration camps, and then only in the final days of the war. [....] The same propaganda scheme has recently been making use of other figures, namely the number of deaths recorded by the International Tracing Service on the basis of documents found when the camps were closed. Obviously this number bears no relation though the authors of the propaganda pretend otherwise to the total deaths in concentration camps; firstly because a considerable quantity of documentay material was destroyed before the departure of the Nazi administration, and secondly because many deaths were never recorded, such as those which occurred in the extermination camps where records were generally not kept.
a document published by the SBA in 1979 (shown here with additions in English by a holocaust denier) explicitly states that "I am giving you the number of *certified deaths* in the individual concentration camps
a document published by the SBA in 1979 (shown here with additions in English by a holocaust denier) explicitly states that "I am giving you the number of *certified deaths* in the individual concentration camps: includes 271504 deaths in 13 camps;
Sachstehend teile ich ihnen die Zahlen der beurkundeten Sterbef lle in den einzelnen Konzentrationslagern mit [sp?].
a similar document published by the SBA in 1980 explicitly states that "However, the numbers don't say anything about the actual death cases in the concentration camps"
a similar document published by the SBA in 1980 explicitly states that "However, the numbers don't say anything about the actual death cases in the concentration camps": http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#redcrossstats includes 273905 deaths in 16 camps;
Die Zahlen sagen jedoch nichts ber die tats chlichen Todesf lle in den Konzentrationslagern aus.
a similar document published by the SBA in 1984 explicitly states that the "certification numbers of the special registry office do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the actual number of deaths in the concentration camps"
a similar document published by the SBA in 1984 explicitly states that the "certification numbers of the special registry office do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the actual number of deaths in the concentration camps": http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#redcrossstats includes 282077 deaths in 16 camps and 373468 deaths in total; underlined:
Die Beurkundungszahlen des Sonderstandesamtes la en keine R ckschl sse auf die tats chliche Zahl der Toten in den Konzentrationslagern zu.
Holocaust Denial: Red Cross Visit to Auschwitz
the Red Cross never inspected any death camps (including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno)
the US delegation of the Red Cross wrote in 1943 that "it is unfortunately extremely difficult for the ICRCC to help the Jewish population in Germany and the occupied countries" and that it could not access "concentration camps" and could not "check on the distribution of relief supplies" because "the German authorities do not consider the civilians who are arrested in occupied countries [...] as civilian internees, thereby excluding them from the application [...] of the Geneva Convention"
the US delegation of the Red Cross wrote in 1943 that "it is unfortunately extremely difficult for the ICRCC to help the Jewish population in Germany and the occupied countries" and that it could not access "concentration camps" and could not "check on the distribution of relief supplies" because "the German authorities do not consider the civilians who are arrested in occupied countries [...] as civilian internees, thereby excluding them from the application [...] of the Geneva Convention": http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#redcrosscamps https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112039810327&view=1up&seq=283
the ICRC "visit" by Maurice Rossel in 1944 was to the Auschwitz I concentration camp (about 1 kilometer way from the Auschwitz II Birkenau death camp) he was merely allowed to talk to the officers and was not even allowed within the camp
the ICRC "visit" by Maurice Rossel in 1944 was to the Auschwitz I concentration camp (about 1 kilometer way from the Auschwitz II Birkenau death camp) he was merely allowed to talk to the officers and was not even allowed within the camp: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/09/kollerstroms-deception-on-visit-of.html https://www.icrc.org/fr/doc/assets/files/2013/auschwitz-rapport-cicr-1944.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863262667677237258/cicr.pdf
Entretien avec le Commandant : Comme Oranienburg et Ravensbr ck, les officiers sont ici la fois aimables et r ticents. Chaque mot est bien calcul et l on sent la crainte de laisser chapper le moindre renseignement.
an interview with Maurice Rossel in 1979 confirms this
an interview with Maurice Rossel in 1979 confirms this: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/09/kollerstroms-deception-on-visit-of.html https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1004168
I arrived at that Kommandatur where I was received very correctly by the camp commander. [...] I asked him [...] if it would be possible that we would support the infirmary, that we would visit. [....] He said: "No, these are internees, you have no right to see whatever. But if you would like to send help to the infirmary, or medications, you can do that." [Lanzmann: And what did you see of the camp?] Nothing. Of the camp. I saw barracks. I saw those from where I was. [...] Wooden barracks.
in the same 1944 report, Rossel interviewed a British POW in a camp in Cieszyn [Teschen, about 50km from Auschwitz II Birkenau] who asked if they had heard about the "shower room" where people were "gassed in series"
in the same 1944 report, Rossel interviewed a British POW in a camp in Cieszyn [Teschen, about 50km from Auschwitz II Birkenau] who asked if they had heard about the "shower room" where people were "gassed in series": http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/09/kollerstroms-deception-on-visit-of.html https://www.icrc.org/fr/doc/assets/files/2013/auschwitz-rapport-cicr-1944.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863262667677237258/cicr.pdf
Spontan ment, l homme de confiance principal britannique de Teschen nous a demand si nous tions au courant au sujet de la salle de douches . Le bruit court en effet qu il existe au camp une salle de douches tr s moderne o les d tenus seraient gaz s en s rie. [....] L homme de confiance britannique a, par l interm diaire de son Kommando d Auschwitz, essay d obtenir confirmation de ce fait. Ce fut impossible de rien prouver. Les d tenus eux-m mes n en ont pas parl . Une fois de plus, en sortant d Auschwitz nous avons l impression que le myst re reste bien gard .
Spontaneously, the British main man of confidence in Teschen asked us if we knew about the 'shower room'. It is rumored that there is a very modern shower room in the camp, where the detainees would be gassed in series. The British man of confidence, through his Auschwitz Kommando, tried to obtain confirmation of this fact. It was impossible to prove anything. The protective custody prisoners themselves have not talked about it. Once again, coming out of Auschwitz we have the impression that the mystery remains well guarded.
the ICRC *was* allowed to visit Theresienstadt ghetto -- but a potemkin village was constructed to hide its true nature
the ICRC *was* allowed to visit Theresienstadt ghetto -- but a potemkin village was constructed to hide its true nature: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/theresienstadt-a-case-study/red-cross-visit/
World Almanac Before-After
claim
none of the almanac estimates before 1949 were based on new data. the almanac's revised estimate for population change 1939 to 1949 is -5,376,520
none of the almanac estimates before 1949 were based on new data. the almanac's revised estimate for population change 1939 to 1949 is -5,376,520: http://archive.is/ZaYxK http://www.nizkor.org/features/denial-of-science/worldalmanac.html
The difference between the 1938 and 1948 figures is thus 4,481,491. In 1949, however, the World Almanac gives a revised 1939 population of 16,643,120 giving a difference of between 1938 and 1947 of 5,376,520. Where the extra population between 1938 and 1939 came from is not cited, though one might speculate that it was based upon the Nazi estimates made in 1942 for the Wannsee Conference. Despite the apparent exactness of the numbers listed, the World Almanac warns that all numbers listed are estimates.
Deniers consider one of their stronger arguments to be the population of Jews before and after the Holocaust. They claim that the 1940 World Almanac gives the world Jewish population as 15,319,359, while the 1949 World Almanac gives the world Jewish population as 15,713,638. In their view this makes it impossible that 6 million Jews died, even given an extremely high birth rate. They therefore claim that either the figures are wrong, or the Holocaust, meaning the deliberate extermination of millions of Jews, cannot have happened.
In addition, rather than using more accurate census figures and other records, Holocaust deniers rely on a popular compendium whose methodology of assessment is unknown, and whose estimates have varied significantly. For example, the 1982 World Almanac gives the world Jewish population as 14,318,000, while the 1990 World Almanac gives the world Jewish population as 18,169,000, and the 1996 World Almanac gives the world Jewish population as 13,451,000. Either 3.7 million Jews appeared unnoticed between 1982 and 1990, and then 4.5 million Jews disappeared equally unnoticed between 1990 and 1996, or the World Almanac is not a particularly reliable source for accurate estimates of worldwide Jewish population.
This subjectivity, commonly stemming from biases or selectivity of available sources, usually means that Holocaust deniers often ignore the documents produced by the Nazis themselves, who used figures of between 9 and 11 million for the Jewish population of Europe, as evidenced in the notes of the Wannsee Conference. In fact, the Nazis methodically recorded the ongoing reduction of the Jewish population, as in the Korherr Report, which gave the status of the Final Solution through December, 1942: The total number of Jews in the world in 1937 is generally estimated at around 17 million, thereof more than 10 million in Europe... From 1937 to the beginning of 1943 the number of Jews, partially due to the excess mortality of the Jews in Central and Western Europe, partially due to the evacuations especially in the more strongly populated Eastern Territories which are here counted as off-going, should have diminished by an estimated 4 million. It must not be overlooked in this respect that of the deaths of Soviet Russian Jews in the occupied Eastern territories only a part was recorded, whereas deaths in the rest of European Russia and at the front are not included at all.... On the whole European Jewry should since 1933, i.e. in the first decade of National Socialist German power, have lost almost half of its population.
Death Camps Were Just Concentration Camps
claim
response
this is the book
other books by the author
Diesel Engines
Sobibor: one gasoline, one diesel (unused)
Sobibor: one gasoline, one diesel (unused) https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ds6-engines-used/ SS men Franz H dl and Erich Fuchs were in charge of installing, maintaining, and operating the gas chamber engine at the Sobibor death camp. Fuchs specifically stated that the engine used at Sobibor was a gasoline engine: We unloaded the motor. It was a heavy Russian petrol [gasoline] engine (presumably from a tank or tractor engine) of at least 200 HP (V-engine, 8 cylinder, water cooled). [2] Likewise, H dl also confirmed that there was a gasoline engine at Sobibor: In the engine room there were indeed two engines. There was a petrol engine, probably from a Russian tank, and a diesel engine. The latter [the diesel engine] was never used, however. [3]
Belzec: one gasoline
Belzec: one gasoline: https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ds6-engines-used/ We have no testimony from the SS men who used the engine at Belzec. Kurt Gerstein, the SS officer who visited the camp in August 1942, described the engine as a diesel engine. However, he does not say how he knew what type of engine it was, so his testimony is less than conclusive. However, another eyewitness did see and interact with the engine at Belzec. Rudolf Reder was one of just two Jewish survivors from the 450,000 or more Jews murdered at Belzec. In 1944, Reder made a statement to the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland regarding the engines used at Belzec. He described the engine as a motor pedzony benzyna [gasoline-powered motor]. Reder also said that he carried 4 to 5 cans of petrol (gas) (kanistry benzyny) every day to the motor room of the gas chambers. Reder used the Polish word for gasoline (benzyny/benzyna) not diesel, which is olej napedowy. [4] Reder s testimony indicates that the engine at Belzec was also probably a gasoline engine.
Treblinka: one gasoline
Treblinka: one gasoline: https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ds6-engines-used/ There is one direct eyewitness who actually used the engine at the Treblinka death camp: Nikolay Shalayev. He was one of the so-called Treblinka motorists. He testified: It was an ordinary, four-cylinder engine which used gasoline and, according to the story of the German machine operator, was of Russian make. [5] As one of the operators of the engine, his evidence indicates that the engine used at Treblinka might have been a gasoline engine as well.
Opinion Polling
just 1% of people believe the Holocaust didn't occur; just 9% believe the Holocaust is exaggerated
Eastern Front
as PhD historian Jonathon House notes, the Nazis were extremely unprepared for a war with the Soviet Union
as PhD historian Jonathon House notes, the Nazis were extremely unprepared for a war with the Soviet Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zinPbUZUHDE
as amateur historian TIK notes, the USSR did not beat the Nazis with manpower alone
as amateur historian TIK notes, the USSR did not beat the Nazis with manpower alone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7BE8CsM9ds
despite having a smaller economy and facing millions of casualties, the USSR outproduced and outfought the Nazis
despite having a smaller economy and facing millions of casualties, the USSR outproduced and outfought the Nazis: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/totalwar2005.pdf Yet table 1 showed that the Soviet Union was not superior to Germany in overall resources. Although Soviet GDP exceeded Germany s in 1940, German wartime mobilization and the deep invasion of Soviet territory shifted the balance strongly in Germany s favour. In the most critical years of the war overall Soviet resources were only 70 per cent of Germany s, and the increment arising from Allied aid compensated only to a small extent. It is true that Germany was engaged on two fronts. Taking this into account, the Soviet Union still maintained a bigger army in the field than Germany and outproduced German industry systematically in weapons other than warships
Western Front
the Nazis defeated France and England mostly through luck and surprise rather than technical superiority
the Nazis defeated France and England mostly through luck and surprise rather than technical superiority: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWwLcykedcs
the Nazis had plans to invade the USSR
the Communists did not have plans to invade Germany
the Communists did not have plans to invade Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#Soviet_preparations Historians have debated whether Stalin was planning an invasion of German territory in the summer of 1941. The debate began in the late-1980s when Viktor Suvorov published a journal article and later the book Icebreaker in which he claimed that Stalin had seen the outbreak of war in Western Europe as an opportunity to spread communist revolutions throughout the continent, and that the Soviet military was being deployed for an imminent attack at the time of the German invasion.[153] This view had also been advanced by former German generals following the war.[154] Suvorov's thesis was fully or partially accepted by a limited number of historians, including Valeri Danilov, Joachim Hoffmann, Mikhail Meltyukhov, and Vladimir Nevezhin, and attracted public attention in Germany, Israel, and Russia.[155][156] It has been strongly rejected by most historians,[157][158] and Icebreaker is generally considered to be an "anti-Soviet tract" in Western countries.[159] David Glantz and Gabriel Gorodetsky wrote books to rebut Suvorov's arguments.[160] The majority of historians believe that Stalin was seeking to avoid war in 1941, as he believed that his military was not ready to fight the German forces.[161]
Border Incidents
Under Operation Himmler (aka Operation Konserve)
Under Operation Himmler (aka Operation Konserve) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Himmler, the Nazis staged several "attacks" on German installations on 31 August 1939, including a famously false attack on a German radio station with concentration camp prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident These attacks were **not** carried out by the Polish government.
Bloody Sunday
Nazi saboteur units (Abwehr agents) opened fire on a retreating Polish army and were summarily executed. In response, the Polish army may have engaged in disorganized mob lynching that killed up to 300 Germans. The Nazi propaganda machine instructed the press that they "must show news on the barbarism of Poles in Bromberg". After German forces took the city, they executed 1800-3800 Poles as "revenge".
Nazi saboteur units (Abwehr agents) opened fire on a retreating Polish army and were summarily executed. In response, the Polish army may have engaged in disorganized mob lynching that killed up to 300 Germans. The Nazi propaganda machine instructed the press that they "must show news on the barbarism of Poles in Bromberg". After German forces took the city, they executed 1800-3800 Poles as "revenge". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1939) On 04 October 1939, Adolf Hitler granted amnesty for all crimes committed by German military in Poland between 01 September and 04 October. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_1939#October_4,_1939_(Wednesday)
Schadewaldt Report
The German Foreign Office publication (!) by Hans Schadewaldt is commonly cited; however, it was written after war had begun (!) and it cites no evidence for the alleged 58,000 deaths of Germans in Poland after the German invasion
The German Foreign Office publication (!) by Hans Schadewaldt is commonly cited; however, it was written after war had begun (!) and it cites no evidence for the alleged 58,000 deaths of Germans in Poland after the German invasion https://archive.org/details/PolishAtrocitiesAgainstTheGermanMinorityInPoland: More than 58,000 were lost by the German minority in Poland during the days of their liberation from the Polish yoke, as far as can be ascertained at present. The Polish nation must for all time be held responsible for this appalling massacre consequent upon that Polish reign of terror.
Terms and Abbreviations
CC [KL] = concentration camp (CC) [Konzentrationslager (KL)]
CC [KL] = concentration camp (CC) [Konzentrationslager (KL)]
LC [AL] = labor camp (LC) [Arbeitslager (AL)]
LC [AL] = labor camp (LC) [Arbeitslager (AL)]
Full Time Period
The Nazis *intentionally* killed 11.5-20.5 million noncombatants (Holocaust [5-6m Jews], Porajmos [0.1-0.5m Romani], "racial eugenics" [0.2-0.3m "sick" under Aktion T4, 5000-15000 "homosexuals"], political repressions [0.1-0.2m leftists, 7000 Spanish Republicans], religious persecution [0.1-0.2m Freemasons, 1000-5000 Jehovah's Witnesses], Generalplan Ost [1.8-3m non-Jewish Poles, 2.8-3.5m Soviet POWs, 1-6m Soviet civilians], occupation of Southeastern Europe [0.3m-0.6m Serbs, 20000-25000 Slovenes], etc.) [5+0.1+0.2+0.005+0.1+0.007+0.1+0.001+1.8+2.8+1+0.3+0.02 = 11.43, 6+0.5+0.3+0.015+0.2+0.007+0.2+0.005+3.0+3.5+6+0.6+0.025 = 20.35]. The Nazis were in power for 12 years (1933-1945) in a nation of 80 million people. This represents about 12 x 80 = 960 million person-years. **The Nazis intentionally killed between 11.5/12 = 0.958 and 20.5/12 = 1.708 million noncombatants per year** and **between 11.5/80/12 = 0.0120 and 20.5/80/12 = 0.0214 noncombatants per person-year.**
The Nazis *intentionally* killed 11.5-20.5 million noncombatants (Holocaust [5-6m Jews], Porajmos [0.1-0.5m Romani], "racial eugenics" [0.2-0.3m "sick" under Aktion T4, 5000-15000 "homosexuals"], political repressions [0.1-0.2m leftists, 7000 Spanish Republicans], religious persecution [0.1-0.2m Freemasons, 1000-5000 Jehovah's Witnesses], Generalplan Ost [1.8-3m non-Jewish Poles, 2.8-3.5m Soviet POWs, 1-6m Soviet civilians], occupation of Southeastern Europe [0.3m-0.6m Serbs, 20000-25000 Slovenes], etc.) [5+0.1+0.2+0.005+0.1+0.007+0.1+0.001+1.8+2.8+1+0.3+0.02 = 11.43, 6+0.5+0.3+0.015+0.2+0.007+0.2+0.005+3.0+3.5+6+0.6+0.025 = 20.35]. The Nazis were in power for 12 years (1933-1945) in a nation of 80 million people. This represents about 12 x 80 = 960 million person-years. **The Nazis intentionally killed between 11.5/12 = 0.958 and 20.5/12 = 1.708 million noncombatants per year** and **between 11.5/80/12 = 0.0120 and 20.5/80/12 = 0.0214 noncombatants per person-year.**
Todo
links
links
sources
unz
Scope of Nazi Deaths: Overall
Wheatcroft 1996: estimates of the scale many (but not all) of Nazi German mass killings: 1.6m in concentration and 2.6-3.5m in death camps, 0.5m in ghettos, 0.7m by SS death squads, 0.23m in death marches, 3m Soviet POWs killed; total 8.6-9.5m (number in paper is inflated by ~2m by high Auschwitz estimate)
Wheatcroft 1996: estimates of the scale many (but not all) of Nazi German mass killings: 1.6m in concentration and 2.6-3.5m in death camps, 0.5m in ghettos, 0.7m by SS death squads, 0.23m in death marches, 3m Soviet POWs killed; total 8.6-9.5m (number in paper is inflated by ~2m by high Auschwitz estimate): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf
Scope of Nazi Deaths: Jewish People
Hilberg 2003: ~5.1 million deaths, 0.8 million by privation and ghettoization; 1.4 million by shooting; and 2.9 million by deathcamps
Hilberg 2003: ~5.1 million deaths, 0.8 million by privation and ghettoization; 1.4 million by shooting; and 2.9 million by deathcamps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Hilberg http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1163800868 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_the_European_Jews Vol1 https://u1lib.org/book/3391947/3af62c Vol2 https://u1lib.org/book/3391951/3f928b Vol3 https://u1lib.org/book/3391956/76d4db Vol3 https://u1lib.org/book/16594482/793ab8 Vol3 https://u1lib.org/book/16594486/67dd10 https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Destruction_of_the_European_Jews/HinIpmliz2MC 1000k at Auschwitz, 800k at Treblinka, 435k at Belzec, 150k at Sobibor, 150k at Chelmno [Kulmhof], 50k at Majdanek [Lublin], 2515k outside camps
Any assessment based on additions must reflect the origins and meanings of the numbers found in wartime documents. The large majority of these figures stems from an actual count of die victims. By and large, the numbers fall into three categories: deaths as result of (1) privation, principally hunger and disease in ghettos, (2) shootings, and (3) deportations to death camps. This division corresponds to a broad jurisdictional segmentation in the bureaucracy itself.
Polish Jewry as a whole lost more than 500,000 people in the ghettos, well over 700,000 in shootings, and up to 1,700,000 in camps. Some who sought sanctuary in the Soviet Union, but who died there of privation, were victims as well.
The following recapitulation of the European-wide Jewish toll includes three tables. Table B-l is a breakdown by cause, Table B-2 by country, and Table B-3 by year.
5.4 million, Timothy Snyder (PhD historian, author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin)
5.4 million, Timothy Snyder (PhD historian, author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/ https://books.google.com/books?id=maEfAQAAQBAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Overall, the Germans, with much local assistance, deliberately murdered about 5.4 million Jews, roughly 2.6 million by shooting and 2.8 million by gassing (about a million at Auschwitz, 780,863 at Treblinka, 434,508 at Be zec, about 180,000 at Sobib r, 150,000 at Che mno, 59,000 at Majdanek, and many of the rest in gas vans in occupied Serbia and the occupied Soviet Union). A few hundred thousand more Jews died during deportations to ghettos or of hunger or disease in ghettos. Another 300,000 Jews were murdered by Germany s ally Romania. Most Holocaust victims had been Polish or Soviet citizens before the war (3.2 million and 1 million respectively). The Germans also killed more than a hundred thousand Roma.
^ see also: Mao
5.29-6.2 million, Wolfgang Benz (PhD historian, author of Dimension des V lkermords: Die Zahl der j dischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus and The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide)
5.29-6.2 million, Wolfgang Benz (PhD historian, author of Dimension des V lkermords: Die Zahl der j dischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus and The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Benz https://books.google.com/books?id=a0ePJCotH0UC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152#v=onepage&q&f=false """The number of victims and with certainty the following represent the minimum number in each case cannot express that adequately. Numbers are just too abstract. However they must be stated in order to make clear the dimension of the genocide: 165,000 Jews from Germany, 65,000 from Austria, 32,000 from France and Belgium, more than 100,000 from the Netherlands, 60,000 from Greece, the same number from Yugoslavia, more than 140,000 from Czechoslovakia, half a million from Hungary, 2.2 million from the Soviet Union, and 2.7 million from Poland. To these numbers must be added all those killed in the pogroms and massacres in Romania and Transitrien (over 200,000) and the deported and murdered Jews from Albania and Norway, Denmark and Italy, from Luxembourg and Bulgaria.``
Scope of Nazi Deaths: Death Camps
Stone 2019: used train deportation data to calculate deathcamp tolls at Treblinka 896955, Belzec 515392, Sobibor 125849, and Auschwitz 1081106 (total 2,619,302); missing Che mno and Majdanek
Arad 1987
Roca 2010: comparison of many estimates for each camp
Auschwitz: Concentration Camp, Death Camp, Labor Camp
Auschwitz contained three camps: Auschwitz I was the main concentration camp, Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was the death camp, and Auschwitz III (Monowitz) was the labor camp
Auschwitz contained three camps: Auschwitz I was the main concentration camp, Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was the death camp, and Auschwitz III (Monowitz) was the labor camp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_subcamps_of_Auschwitz
Auschwitz I
Birkenau
Monowitz
Auschwitz: Deathcount
Zimmerman 2004: academics were uncertain of Auschwitz's precise death toll (estimated between 0.85 million and 3 million) until Piper 1991 (1.08 million)
Zimmerman 2004: academics were uncertain of Auschwitz's precise death toll (estimated between 0.85 million and 3 million) until Piper 1991 (1.08 million): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1462352042000225976 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/1462352042000225976 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859709936815964160/zimmerman2004.pdf
For decades following World War II the number of Auschwitz murder victims was generally believed to be as high as three million. More conservative estimates had placed the number at one million (Hilberg, 1985, pp 893 894) and as low as 850,000 (Reitlinger, 1961, pp 460 461). In 1991 the number was finally determined to be 1.1 million (Piper, 1991, pp 92, 98).
Zimmerman 2004
Zimmerman 2004: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1462352042000225976 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/1462352042000225976 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859709936815964160/zimmerman2004.pdf
Fritjof Meyer, a well known European journalist, wrote an article entitled The number of auschwitz victims: new discoveries from new archival sources ( Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz: Neue Erkentnisse durch neue Archivfunde ), where he argued that the actual number of Auschwitz murder victims was 500,000. [....]
Piper 1991 (1996 republish): Nazis killed 1.076-1.086m people at Auschwitz
Piper 1991 (1996 republish): Nazis killed 1.076-1.086m people at Auschwitz: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Auschwitz/VV76PAAACAAJ https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/30831088 [physical copy only xxx]
Piper 2000: Auschwitz received 1.3 million people and 1.1 million died, including 960k Jews, 74k Poles, 21k Roma, 15k Soviet POWs, and 15k other Europeans
Piper 2000: Auschwitz received 1.3 million people and 1.1 million died, including 960k Jews, 74k Poles, 21k Roma, 15k Soviet POWs, and 15k other Europeans https://www.google.com/books/edition/Auschwitz_1940_1945/NAW_uQEACAAJ https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/874233388 [physical copy only xxx, see pp. 230 231]
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: "Too Many Bodies"
the central office of Auschwitz-Birkenau asserts they could cremate, per day, 340 persons in crematorium 1, 1440 persons in crematorium 2, 1440 persons in crematorium 3, 768 persons in crematorium 4, 768 persons in crematorium 5, which totals to 4765 persons per day, 1,737,129 persons per year, and 4,690,248 persons over Auschwitz-Birkenau's 2.7 years of operation
the central office of Auschwitz-Birkenau asserts they could cremate, per day, 340 persons in crematorium 1, 1440 persons in crematorium 2, 1440 persons in crematorium 3, 768 persons in crematorium 4, 768 persons in crematorium 5, which totals to 4765 persons per day, 1,737,129 persons per year, and 4,690,248 persons over Auschwitz-Birkenau's 2.7 years of operation: https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ab3-german-documents-ovens/ According to the Zentralbauleitung letter, given the normal pace of cremation (half an hour for two corpses in one retort), each crematorium could incinerate 768 corpses in 24 hours. However, Sonderkommando prisoners testified that up to 1,500 corpses were burned in 24 hours (three to five within 20 to 30 minutes).
the Vrba-Wetzler report (compiled by escapee Slovak Jews) estimates that the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau could handle 6,000 persons per day, 2,190,000 persons per year, and 5,913,000 persons over Auschwitz-Birkenau's 2.7 years of operation
the Vrba-Wetzler report (compiled by escapee Slovak Jews) estimates that the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau could handle 6,000 persons per day, 2,190,000 persons per year, and 5,913,000 persons over Auschwitz-Birkenau's 2.7 years of operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrba%E2%80%93Wetzler_report https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-vrba-wetzler-report-auschwitz-protocols At present there are four crematoria in operation at BIRKENAU, two large ones, I and II, and two smaller ones, III and IV. Those of type I and II consist of 3 parts, i.e.,: (A) the furnace room; (B) the large halls; and (C) the gas chamber. A huge chimney rises from the furnace room around which are grouped nine furnaces, each having four openings. Each opening can take three normal corpses at once and after an hour and a half the bodies are completely burned. This corresponds to a daily capacity of about 2,000 bodies... Crematoria III and IV work on nearly the same principle, but their capacity is only half as large. Thus the total capacity of the four cremating and gassing plants at BIRKENAU amounts to about 6,000 daily.
the instructions written by the cremation company
the instructions written by the cremation company: https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ab4-civilian-ovens-comparison/ "As soon as the remains of the bodies have fallen from the chamotte grid to the ash collection channel below, they should be pulled forward towards the ash removal door, using the scraper. Here they can be left for a further twenty minutes to be fully consumed . . . In the meantime, further bodies can be introduced one after the other into the chambers." - J.C. Pressac, "Technique & Operation..." page 136
Auschwitz: Calendar
key dates
big events
Auschwitz: Maps
satelite images of modern locations of Auschwitz I (concentration camp), Auschwitz II Birkenau (death camp), Auschwitz III Monowitz (labor camp) and surrounding Polish towns (Wola, Jedina, Harmeze, P awy, Rajsko, Oswiecim)
satelite images of modern locations of Auschwitz I (concentration camp), Auschwitz II Birkenau (death camp), Auschwitz III Monowitz (labor camp) and surrounding Polish towns (Wola, Jedina, Harmeze, P awy, Rajsko, Oswiecim): https://zoom.earth/#view=50.030333,19.232714,13.75z
aerial photograph of camp complex with major camps highlighted
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Flaming Chimneys
yes, chimney soot can produce flames -- as arch-denier Carl Mattogno admits
yes, chimney soot can produce flames -- as arch-denier Carl Mattogno admits: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/07/ugly-voice-productions-and-holocaust.html https://archive.is/rNlUY
In pre-war times, when the average European household was using wood, coke, or coal almost exclusively for home-heating, such cases were so common that the phenomenon was, on occasion, produced intentionally for scientific studies. For instance, in early 1933, such experiments were carried out in a nearly abandoned four-story building in Berlin. A diagram shows that 95 minutes after the ignition of the soot on the first floor one meter above ground level the combustion temperature of the soot in the smokestack reached 1060 C. This is not really surprising, for soot consists of carbon having an ignition temperature of 700 C.
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Aerial Photographs
60PR = 60th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron of the South African Air Force, used DH.98 Mosquitos
60PR = 60th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron of the South African Air Force, used DH.98 Mosquitos
464BG = 464th Bombardment Group of the , used B-24 Liberators
464BG = 464th Bombardment Group of the , used B-24 Liberators
5PG = 5th Photographic Reconnaissance Group of the 15th Air Force, used F-5 Lightnings
5PG = 5th Photographic Reconnaissance Group of the 15th Air Force, used F-5 Lightnings
gallery 3
gallery 4?
gallery of some CIA photographs
Dino Brugioni and Robert Poirer 1978: two CIA photoanalysts re-examined and labelled many aerial photographs of Auschwitz in a CIA monograph, including 4 April 1944, 26 June 1944, 25 August 1944, 13 September 1944, 21 December 1944, and 14 January 1945
list of images 1
list of images 2
4 April 1944:
SAAF
31 May 1944: One Camera, One Pass: Open-Air Cremation
SAAF -- CIA and YV claim smoke from crematorium 5
SAAF -- CIA and YV claim smoke from crematorium 5
31 May 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0462 frame 3055 shows the entire camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau
31 May 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0462 frame 3055 shows the entire camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau: https://ncap.org.uk/frame/3-1-25-32-55
^ 31 May 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0462 collage compiled from frames 3155-3157
^ 31 May 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0462 collage compiled from frames 3155-3157: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hknQMJ3AhEO3rhSXE79UY6ncA-luiGp-
^ 31 May 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0462 frames over Auschwitz II Birkenau (3155 to 3157)
^ 31 May 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0462 all frames (3001 to 5045)
^ 31 May 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0462 all frames (3001 to 5045): https://ncap.org.uk/search?archive=3-1-25-32
26 June 1944:
60PR/522
26 June 1944
^ 26 June 1944: no open-air cremation can be seen because the camp received no large deportations before this photo
^ 26 June 1944: no open-air cremation can be seen because the camp received no large deportations before this photo: https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ab6-open-air-burning/
John Ball, a Canadian Holocaust denier, argues that an aerial reconnaissance photograph taken by the Allies on June 26, 1944, when the Allies flew over Auschwitz-Birkenau on their way to bombing factory targets, showed no open-air burning pits.[8] This is because the deportation of Hungarian Jews was suspended during this time. The list of transports shows that no trains left Hungary from June 17 to June 24, but were resumed on June 25. The transports took three or four days to get to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Many Hungarian Jews were literally en route to their deaths. In addition, there was no evidence of Hungarian Jews being registered into the camp as slave laborers from June 20 to June 27, 1944, which again proves the suspension of activity.
8 July 1944: Open-Air Cremation
zimmerman says open-air
USAF
9 August 1944
???
12 August 1944: Open-Air Cremation
???
20 August 1944
???
23 August 1944: Two Passes, Two Directions: Open-Air Cremation
23 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0686 frame 3084 shows the entire camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, plus enlarged version showing smoke from mass open-air cremation in a pit
23 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0686 frame 3084 shows the entire camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, plus enlarged version showing smoke from mass open-air cremation in a pit: https://ncap.org.uk/frame/1-1-89-1-71
^ 23 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0686 collage compiled from frames 3080, 3081, 3082, 3084, 3086
^ 23 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0686 collage compiled from frames 3080, 3081, 3082, 3084, 3086: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k3bt0XrUuewWzaa1OrKRywLLRTvFsYGB/view
^ 23 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0686 frames over Auschwitz II Birkenau (3080 to 3086 first pass and 4083 to 4089 second pass)
^ 23 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0686 all frames (3001 to 5038)
^ 23 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0686 all frames (3001 to 5038): https://ncap.org.uk/search?archive=1-1-89-1
25 August 1944: Saaf: One Pass, Two Cameras: No Open-Air Cremation
25 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0694 frame 4186 shows the entire camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau
25 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0694 frame 4186 shows the entire camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau: https://ncap.org.uk/frame/6-1-8-5-388
^ 25 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0694 frame 4186 collage compiled from frames 4184-4188
^ 25 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0694 frame 4186 collage compiled from frames 4184-4188: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Z_ZPScZFppQu22CKma1G8YYHgCsAVzmS
^ 25 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0694 frames over Auschwitz II Birkenau (3181 to 3187 first camera and 4184 to 4188 second camera)
^ 25 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0694 all frames (3001 to 4216)
^ 25 August 1944: SAAF squadron 60PR sortie 0694 all frames (3001 to 4216) https://ncap.org.uk/search?archive=6-1-8-5
^ the two-camera theory appears correct
8 September 1944
SAAF
13 September 1944
464BG/4M97
29 November 1944
5PG
21 December 1944:
5PG/15SG/994
14 or 15 January 1945
5PG
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Sonderkommando Photographs
1944: in August 1944, a member of the Auschwitz II Birkenau Sonderkommando, a Greek Jew usually called Alex, supported by {Abraham Dragon (also Dragan), Shlomo Dragon (also Szlama Dragan), Alter Feinsilber (also Fajnzylberg) and David Szmulewski}, took at least four photographs of Crematorium 5 [Krema V] and its surroundings; these photos show prisoners dragging naked corpses towards a smoking open-air cremation in a pit
1944: in August 1944, a member of the Auschwitz II Birkenau Sonderkommando, a Greek Jew usually called Alex, supported by {Abraham Dragon (also Dragan), Shlomo Dragon (also Szlama Dragan), Alter Feinsilber (also Fajnzylberg) and David Szmulewski}, took at least four photographs of Crematorium 5 [Krema V] and its surroundings; these photos show prisoners dragging naked corpses towards a smoking open-air cremation in a pit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando_photographs https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sonderkommando-photographs-from-auschwitz
photo 280: shows Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners moving bodies into the open-air cremation pit
photo 280: shows Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners moving bodies into the open-air cremation pit: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sonderkommando-photographs-from-auschwitz
photo 281: shows Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners moving bodies into the open-air cremation pit
photo 281: shows Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners moving bodies into the open-air cremation pit: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sonderkommando-photographs-from-auschwitz
photo 282: shows naked Jewish women before execution in gas chamber
photo 283: shows a tree, shot too high
^ alternative versions, taken without the image frames, come from Didi-Huberman 2012
the Sonderkommando photos are authentic
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Auschwitz Album [Jacob Album]
taken by SS identification service [Erkennungsdienst] officers in May-July 1944, the Auschwitz album contains 56 pages and 193 photographs from inside and around the camp
taken by SS identification service [Erkennungsdienst] officers in May-July 1944, the Auschwitz album contains 56 pages and 193 photographs from inside and around the camp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_Album https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_Erkennungsdienst
photographs 35 and 36 (among others) show inmates exiting the trains with smoke (?) in the background
photographs 35 and 36 (among others) show inmates exiting the trains with smoke (?) in the background: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XVyYjtKSoVoZ0DkRTpRQ832ra0a1jtxb
photographs 169 and 172 (among others) show Sonderkommando inmates collecting "loot" to transport to the "Kaneda" storage facility
photographs 169 and 172 (among others) show Sonderkommando inmates collecting "loot" to transport to the "Kaneda" storage facility: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XVyYjtKSoVoZ0DkRTpRQ832ra0a1jtxb
^ almost all photographs are available online from Vad Yashem as an interactive webpage
^ almost all photographs are available online from Vad Yashem as an interactive webpage: https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/album_auschwitz/arrival.asp
^ all photographs are available online from Vad Yashem in album FA268
^ almost all photographs are available in Google Drive
^ Auschwitz Album photos were used as fake backgrounds for a film showing a "soccer game in Auschwitz"; although the footage is fake, the soccer field is real
^ Auschwitz Album photos were used as fake backgrounds for a film showing a "soccer game in Auschwitz"; although the footage is fake, the soccer field is real: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/11/fake-footage-of-auschwitz-birkenau.html https://archive.is/1ZYpE
Auschwitz Photographs: Auschwitz Album [Bauleitung Album]
taken in 1942-1943 by Dietrich Kamann, a worker for the central construction management [Zentralbauleitung] of the military branch of the Nazi paramilitary [Waffen-Schutzstaffel, Waffen-SS] and Auschwitz Police [Polizei Auschwitz], the Bauleitung Album contains 386 (?) photographs from inside and around the camp during (and sometimes after) construction of various facilities, including the crematoria
taken in 1942-1943 by Dietrich Kamann, a worker for the central construction management [Zentralbauleitung] of the military branch of the Nazi paramilitary [Waffen-Schutzstaffel, Waffen-SS] and Auschwitz Police [Polizei Auschwitz], the Bauleitung Album contains 386 (?) photographs from inside and around the camp during (and sometimes after) construction of various facilities, including the crematoria: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentralbauleitung_der_Waffen-SS_und_Polizei_Auschwitz
all photographs are available online from Yad Vashem in album FA157
Auschwitz Photographs: Auschwitz Album [Hoecker Album]
collection
Auschwitz Photographs: Auschwitz Album [Truppenlazarett Album]
title page
photos
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Soot on Chimneys, Evidence for Cremation: Crematory 4
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/389 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] under construction with no soot on either chimney
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/389 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] under construction with no soot on either chimney: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=55232
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/390 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] under construction with no soot on either chimney
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/390 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] under construction with no soot on either chimney: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=56659
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/391 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] under construction with no soot on either chimney
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/391 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] under construction with no soot on either chimney: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=58099
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/392 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] under construction with no soot on either chimney
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/398 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] after construction at the same angle as FA157/392 with clear soot on both chimneys
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/398 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 4 [Krema IV] after construction at the same angle as FA157/392 with clear soot on both chimneys: http://auschwitz.org/en/gallery/historical-pictures-and-documents/extermination,11.html https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=68182&ind=42
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Soot on Chimneys, Evidence for Cremation: Crematory 2
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/387 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the east under construction without soot
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/387 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the east under construction without soot: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=66599
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/393 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the north under construction without soot
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/393 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the north under construction without soot: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=60973
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/394 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the west under construction without soot
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/394 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the west under construction without soot: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=62414
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/395 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the south under construction without soot
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/395 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the south under construction without soot: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=63872
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/358 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 [Krema II] from the south with clear soot on the chimney
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Soot on Chimneys, Evidence for Cremation: Crematory 3 [No Soot Picture]
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/396 (inferior: FA157/380) from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 3 [Krema III] under construction without soot
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/396 (inferior: FA157/380) from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 3 [Krema III] under construction without soot: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=60697 https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=65304
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Soot on Chimneys, Evidence for Cremation: Crematory 5 [No Soot Picture]
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/397 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 5 [Krema V] under construction without soot
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/397 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 5 [Krema V] under construction without soot: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=66737
Auschwitz Holocaust Denial: Many Ovens, Evidence for Cremation
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/386 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 or 3 [Krema II or III] furnace room under construction with 12 oven muffles
1943: Yad Vashem photograph FA157/386 from the Bauleitung Album shows Crematory 2 or 3 [Krema II or III] furnace room under construction with 12 oven muffles: http://auschwitz.org/en/gallery/historical-pictures-and-documents/extermination,11.html https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=60835
Belzec: Death Camp Death Toll
Be ec
Writte 2001: the decrypted Hofle telegram demonstrates that in the year 1942 alone, approximately 435k Jewish people were killed in Be ec
Writte 2001: the decrypted Hofle telegram demonstrates that in the year 1942 alone, approximately 435k Jewish people were killed in Be ec: https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/15/3/468/660291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859720445161635840/writte2001.pdf
The number for Belzec, in particular, seems on target as the killings in this camp stopped in December. For this reason the figure of 434,508 must be nearly identical with the actual total number. It is considerably lower than most historians have calculated.15 Wolfgang Scheffler, who gave expert opinions on the Reinhardt camps and deportations at numerous German trials of Nazi criminals, is an exception. Scheffler arrived at a minimum figure of 441,442 victims from identified towns and villages, and explained that a precise calculation was not possible because of additional unknown transports.16
Chelmno [Kulmhof]: Death Camp Death Toll
Che mno
Sobibor: Death Camp Death Toll
Sobibor
Writte 2001: the decrypted Hofle telegram demonstrates that in the year 1942 alone, approximately 102.6k Jewish people were killed in Treblinka
Writte 2001: the decrypted Hofle telegram demonstrates that in the year 1942 alone, approximately 102.6k Jewish people were killed in Treblinka: https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/15/3/468/660291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859720445161635840/writte2001.pdf
The figure for Sobibor in Hofle's radio telegram is 101,370 victims for 1942 Scheffler's minimum figure of 102,577 for 1942 almost matches the actual number.17
Treblinka: Death Camp Death Toll
Treblinka
Writte 2001: the decrypted Hofle telegram demonstrates that in the year 1942 alone, approximately 714k Jewish people were killed in Treblinka
Writte 2001: the decrypted Hofle telegram demonstrates that in the year 1942 alone, approximately 714k Jewish people were killed in Treblinka: https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/15/3/468/660291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859720445161635840/writte2001.pdf
In Treblinka 713,555 victims were murdered. The figure 71,355 in Hofle's radio telegram is a typing error or a mistake in the process of decrypting If the figures for Lublin, Belzec and Sobibor are subtracted from the established sum of 1,274,166, the correct number 713,555 for Treblinka remains, the numeral "5" simply got left off Historical research had already reached an approximate number: Yitzhak Arad estimated about 763,000 victims up to die end of April 1943, and gives 32,500 for die period between January and April, i.e , 730,500 for 1942.18 Again there can be no consideration for any unknown transports
Majdanek [Lublin]: Death Camp Death Toll
Majdanek
Writte 2001: the decrypted Hofle telegram suggests that in the year 1942 alone, approximately 24.7k Jewish people were killed in Majdanek
Writte 2001: although Majdanek was a concentration camp at first, the numbers listed are almost certainly those killed in the camp: three gas chambers were constructed in October 1942, the numbers align with those of other death camps, and more than half of the year total for those deported to Majdanek were deported in the last half of December 1942 (12.8 of 24.7)
Writte 2001: although Majdanek was a concentration camp at first, the numbers listed are almost certainly those killed in the camp: three gas chambers were constructed in October 1942, the numbers align with those of other death camps, and more than half of the year total for those deported to Majdanek were deported in the last half of December 1942 (12.8 of 24.7): https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/15/3/468/660291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859720445161635840/writte2001.pdf
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were extermination camps, so it is reasonable to assume that the numbers given for "L" are numbers of Jews murdered also it would not make sense to give the numbers Jailed for three camps and make Lublin an exception.
Lublin, however, was a regular concentration camp; from October 1942 three gas chambers were used to murder prisoners after selections of diose deemed unable to work. The number culled dunng selections in Majdanek from October onwards is known- their sum is much lower than the figures given in Hofle's radio telegram.25 As the document indicates, the murder of Jews transported to Lublin without being registered at the concentration camp became an integral part of Einsatz Rewhardt from an unspecified date onward Further research, one hopes, will hopefully permit more precise information.
Kranz 2005
Kranz 2005: http://www.majdanek.eu/media/files/pow/29/zeszyty_majdanka_tom_xxiii_tomasz_kranz_ewidencja_zgonow_i_smiertelnosc_wiezniow_kl_lublin.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/864410185762471956/kranz2005.pdf Majdanek had good registrations of death:
Bez wzgl du na to, czy wi niowie oboz w koncentracyjnych gin li wwyniku warunk w bytowych, pracy ponad si y, chor b czy te planowej eks-terminacji, ich zgony by y ewidencjonowane i liczone przez administracje obo-z w. Przyk ad KL [Konzentrationslager] Lublin pokazuje, e rejestracja mierci prowadzona by a skrupulatnie, aczkolwiek nie ma pewno ci, czy nie pope niano przy tym po-wa niejszych b d w lub wiadomie nie ukrywano pewnych fakt w. [Regardless of whether the prisoners of concentration camps died as a result of living conditions, excessive work, diseases or planned extermination, their deaths were recorded and counted by the camp administrations. The example of KL Lublin shows that the "registration of death" was carried out scrupulously, although it is uncertain whether serious mistakes were made or certain facts were not knowingly hidden.]
Bergen-Belsen: Concentration Camp Death Toll
Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen: Photographs
21 April 1945: in photograph BU 4260, Nazi collaborator Fritz Klein stands among victims in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
21 April 1945: in photograph BU 4260, Nazi collaborator Fritz Klein stands among victims in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205194194
photographs to do xxx todo
Stutthoff: Concentration Camp Death Toll
Stutthof
Stutthoff: Photographs
todo xxx
USHMM photos 85014 and 85015 show a prisoner being led to a row of naked bodies (mislabelled as occuring in Ponary massacre)
USHMM photos 85014 and 85015 show a prisoner being led to a row of naked bodies (mislabelled as occuring in Ponary massacre): https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa13631 https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa13632
Evidence: Hofle Telegram
sent on 11 January 1943, the decryped H fle Telegram documents that in the year 1942 alone, 1,274,166 Jewish people arrived at four Nazi deathcamps as a part of Operation Reinhart: 24733 to Majdanek (L), 434508 to Be ec (B), 101370 to Sobibor (S), 713555 to Treblinka (T)
sent on 11 January 1943, the decryped H fle Telegram documents that in the year 1942 alone, 1,274,166 Jewish people arrived at four Nazi deathcamps as a part of Operation Reinhart: 24733 to Majdanek (L), 434508 to Be ec (B), 101370 to Sobibor (S), 713555 to Treblinka (T): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6fle_Telegram the Telegram also asserts in the 2nd half of December 1942 that 23611 Jewish people were deported to these camps: 12761 to Majdanek (L), 0 to Be ec (B), 515 to Sobibor (S), 10335 to Treblinka (T)
Writte 2001: explains how the Telegram was found in 2000, its English translation, and its significance
Koherr Report
delivered to Goergin in January 1943, the Koherr Report documented 1.274 million Jews "processed" in the camps of the General Government (south Poland) and Warthegau
delivered to Goergin in January 1943, the Koherr Report documented 1.274 million Jews "processed" in the camps of the General Government (south Poland) and Warthegau: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korherr_Report translation and originals: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/korherr.html
Evidence Limitations: Railway Record Incompleteness
Holocaust railway transportation records are notoriously incomplete:
Writte 2001: deportations listed in the Hofle Telegram line up well with survivor reports
Writte 2001: deportations listed in the Hofle Telegram line up well with survivor reports: https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article/15/3/468/660291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/hgs/15.3.468 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859720445161635840/writte2001.pdf
A transport from the collection camp Kielbasin is documented, starting on December 14, 1942 and arriving on December 15 at Treblinka, allegedly carrying 7,000 Jews to their death. If their arrival at Treblinka actually took place a day or two later (entirely possible as the date is an estimate), the deportation would fit into the "fortnightly report" of the document. On December 17, 1942, a train left Treblinka via Bialystok to Grodno, presumably to return fully laden again. According to survivor testimony, the last train from Kielbasin left for Treblinka on December 20.21 Whereas Treblinka murdered 10,335 victims in the second half of December 1942, for Sobibor only 515 are recorded These Sobibor Jews must be identical with those ascertained by Scheffler, who listed one deportahon to Sobibor from Staw on December 22, 1942. Details on this deportation emerge from die reports of survivors. It has to be stated diat the number 515 accords well with the sources.
Holocaust in the East:
Ukraine
Yad Vashem documents
Babi Yar: Photographs
aerial photographs do not demonstrate that no massacre occurred in Babi Yar
aerial photographs do not demonstrate that no massacre occurred in Babi Yar: https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/by5-aerial-photos/
photographs xxx todo
photographs xxx todo
Other Photographs: UNCATEGORIZED TODO XXX
aushcwitz aerial photographs
auschwitz albums
^ Furnaces holding the remains of burned bodies at the Buchenwald concentration camp near Jena, Germany. (Image credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps/Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum)
^ Furnaces holding the remains of burned bodies at the Buchenwald concentration camp near Jena, Germany. (Image credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps/Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum)
lots of high res stuff
lots of high res stuff: https://albumwar2.com/
very low res and cropped stuff
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: UNCATEGORIZED TODO XXX
1942: unknown author: Einsatzgruppen auxiliaries shoot three men point blank into a pit they themselves dug
1942: unknown author: Einsatzgruppen auxiliaries shoot three men point blank into a pit they themselves dug: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einsatzgruppen_or_their_auxiliaries_-_Kovno_1942.jpg
June to September 1941: Men with an unidentified unit execute a group of Soviet civilians kneeling by the side of a mass grave
June to September 1941: Men with an unidentified unit execute a group of Soviet civilians kneeling by the side of a mass grave: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa19151
^ June to September 1941: Men with an unidentified unit mass shooting of Jews - probably in Ukraine
^ June to September 1941: Men with an unidentified unit mass shooting of Jews - probably in Ukraine: http://ellekar.dk/Media/35/Uddrag_35.pdf
very unknown
Einsatzgruppen Killing: Liepaja
15-17 December 1941: the Einsatzgruppen and Latvian collaborators killed 6000 people from the coastal fishing town of Liep ja [Liepaja, Libau]; victims included about 5000 Jews and 1000 Roma, Latvians, communists, and mentally ill people; of these, about 3000 were killed on the de [Skede, Skeden, Schkeden, Shkeede] beach
15-17 December 1941: the Einsatzgruppen and Latvian collaborators killed 6000 people from the coastal fishing town of Liep ja [Liepaja, Libau]; victims included about 5000 Jews and 1000 Roma, Latvians, communists, and mentally ill people; of these, about 3000 were killed on the de [Skede, Skeden, Schkeden, Shkeede] beach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liep%C4%81ja_massacres
putative map of the graves resulting from ground penetrating radar (GPR)
putative map of the graves resulting from ground penetrating radar (GPR): http://www.liepajajews.org/mass-graves-and-memorial-stone/
putative map of the graves from the Extraordinary Commission
putative map of the graves from the Extraordinary Commission: http://www.liepajajews.org/mass-graves-and-memorial-stone/
aerial picture of Skede beach in 2003
satellite picture of Skede beach in 2021
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Liepaja Massacre [Wiener Footage]
video by Reinhard Wiener [sometimes Richard Wiener], a German Navy [Kriegsmarine] man who was walking around Liepaja at the time, available from Yad Vashem: Juden Execution in Libau 1941
video by Reinhard Wiener [sometimes Richard Wiener], a German Navy [Kriegsmarine] man who was walking around Liepaja at the time, available from Yad Vashem: Juden Execution in Libau 1941: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mroRsZ5ygUY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTg6wEVrWVE
^ video by Reinhard Wiener from USHMM (requires visit to museum)
^ video by Reinhard Weiner in HD with watermarks by copyright holder
^ video by Reinhard Weiner in HD with watermarks by copyright holder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9FwbAp5liw
^ interview about Liepaja with Reinhard Wiener in 1981
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Liepaja Massacre [Zivcon Album]
David Zicvon [also Siwzon, Zivcuns, Zwirzon] saved photographs by squad leader [Scharf hrer] Karl-Emil Strott [also Carl Strott, Carl-Emil Strott]
David Zicvon [also Siwzon, Zivcuns, Zwirzon] saved photographs by squad leader [Scharf hrer] Karl-Emil Strott [also Carl Strott, Carl-Emil Strott]: https://phdn.org/histgen/einsatzgruppen-shoah-par-balles/liepaja-skede.html
Yad Vashem photograph 85DO1 (enlarged: 83EO5) shows Jewish children huddling in front of armed collaborators and Schutzpolizei
Yad Vashem photograph XXXXX shows Jewish people forced to undress in front of fence
Yad Vashem photographs 1935/24 (enlarged: 85DO9) shows Jewish people huddling in front of armed collaborators on beach
Yad Vashem photograph 85CO9 shows Jewish people huddling near armed collaborators
Yad Vashem photograph 85CO9 shows Jewish people huddling near armed collaborators: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=60615
Yad Vashem photograph 83EO1 shows Jewish people being forced to undress
Yad Vashem photograph 83EO1 shows Jewish people being forced to undress: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=55958
Yad Vashem photograph 1935/16 (enlarged: 4613/627, inferior: FA214/46) shows people undressing before execution
Yad Vashem photograph 1935/27 (enlarged: 4613/626, inferior: 85DO2) shows Jewish women forced to pose after partially undressing
Yad Vashem photograph FA214/50 shows Jewish women fully undressed before execution
Yad Vashem photograph FA214/50 shows Jewish women fully undressed before execution: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=68209
Bundesarchiv photograph 183-35199-0001 (or: 162 Bild-02616, 162 Bild-02620, 162 Bild-03259) shows several women stripped naked and mocked
Bundesarchiv photograph 183-35199-0001 (or: 162 Bild-02616, 162 Bild-02620, 162 Bild-03259) shows several women stripped naked and mocked:
Yad Vashem photograph 1935/28 (enlarged: 4613/625) shows Jewish children walking to execution site
Yad Vashem photograph 85DO3 (inferior: FA214/49) shows people on pit ridge before execution from behind
Yad Vashem photograph 1935/10 (enlarged: 4613/629, inferior: 1979/5, FA214/48, 85EO5) shows people on pit ridge before execution from side
Yad Vashem photograph 85EO6 shows a "kicker" walking along the pit ridge after execution
Yad Vashem photograph 85EO6 shows a "kicker" walking along the pit ridge after execution: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=68106
Yad Vashem photograph 2725/14 shows Jewish people digging their own graves in the forest before execution
Yad Vashem photograph 2725/14 shows Jewish people digging their own graves in the forest before execution: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=17797
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Liepaja Massacre: Unknown Author
http://ellekar.dk/Media/35/Uddrag_35.pdf
Mass shooting of Jews from Liep ja in Latvia. Most of the approximately 6,000 Jews from Liep ja were murdered in the second half of 1941 - most on 16 and 17 December on a beach north of the city. The killings were carried out by Einsatzgruppe A as well as Latvian auxiliary police. Along the coast a wide grave had been dug. The Jews were lined up in groups of ten on the edge of the tomb; the executioners - two for each victim - were located on the opposite side of the grave. After the killing, the corpses that had not fallen into the grave were kicked down, and the next group was led forward. The course of the killings is documented during a trial at the Landgericht Hannover in 1971 against several of the participants.
^ 1941: uncertain wherabouts and photographer, but likely from Liepaja
^ 1941: uncertain wherabouts and photographer, but likely from Liepaja:
^ 1941: uncertain wherabouts and photographer, but likely from Liepaja
^ 1941: uncertain wherabouts and photographer, but likely from Liepaja:
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Vinnytsia [Vinnitsia, Vinnitsa]
between 1941 and 1943, SS task forces [Einsatzgruppen] executed almost every Jew in Yerusalimka, the Jewish quarter of the town of Vinnytsia
between 1941 and 1943, SS task forces [Einsatzgruppen] executed almost every Jew in Yerusalimka, the Jewish quarter of the town of Vinnytsia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnytsia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerusalimka
^ according to Erwin Bingel, the three Vinnytsia massacres killed 34k Jews: 28k in the first two massacres by Nazi Einsatzgruppen and 6k by Ukrainian collaborators
^ according to Erwin Bingel, the three Vinnytsia massacres killed 34k Jews: 28k in the first two massacres by Nazi Einsatzgruppen and 6k by Ukrainian collaborators: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/bingel.html
In the first two massacres, Bingel calculated first twenty-four thousand and then twenty-eight thousand Jews were killed. In the third, Ukrainian militia killings, six thousand were murdered.
Patrick Desbois: on 1941 September 22 the SS and collaborators killed 28,000 Jews and in 1942 killed 10,000 Jews
1941, Vinnytsia: photo titled "the Last Jew in Vinnytsia" shows Nazis preparing to shoot a Jewish man, who looks into the camera, into a pit of bodies; photo was taken from a German soldier
1941, Vinnytsia: photo titled "the Last Jew in Vinnytsia" shows Nazis preparing to shoot a Jewish man, who looks into the camera, into a pit of bodies; photo was taken from a German soldier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Jew_in_Vinnitsa
^ original publication in United Press International from Al Moss
1941, Vinnytsia: several Nazis stand around people before they are stripped naked and killed
1941, Vinnytsia: two Nazis or collaborators stand in front of the bodies they killed
1941, Vinnytsia: several dead bodies lay in the streets
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Miropol [Skrovina Album]
several pogroms and mass killings executed most of the ~1200 Jews in Miropol
several pogroms and mass killings executed most of the ~1200 Jews in Miropol: https://www.yadvashem.org/untoldstories/database/index.asp?cid=1032
1941 October: photo shows Ukrainian collaborators killing a Jewish mother and two kids above a pit in a forest
1941 October: photo shows Ukrainian collaborators killing a Jewish mother and two kids above a pit in a forest: http://somewereneighbors.ushmm.org/#/exhibitions/policemen/un2579/related
^ 1941 October: photo taken by Slovenian participant in the Wehrmacht and eventual resistance operators Lubomir Skrovina; now archived in Security Services Archive, Czechia; photographer testified that the killers knew their victims and taunted them
^ 1941 October: photo taken by Slovenian participant in the Wehrmacht and eventual resistance operators Lubomir Skrovina; now archived in Security Services Archive, Czechia; photographer testified that the killers knew their victims and taunted them: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/books/review/the-ravine-holocaust-photo-wendy-lower.html
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Bi Goraj
between 1941 and 1945, only 50 of Bi goraj's Jews survived
A mass grave is prepared to bury the Jews murdered in a Jewish cemetery in the vicinity of Bilgoraj
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Lviv [Lw W] Pogrom
Lviv pogroms
http://ellekar.dk/Media/35/Uddrag_35.pdf todo xxx
During the pogrom in Lw w immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, a Jewish woman is thrown to the ground and surrounded by her executioners.
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Kaunas [Kovno] Pogrom
Kaunas pogrom
Kaunas pogrom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas_pogrom -- source: "Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg; D W,Vienna"
The incident was documented by a German soldier who photographed the event
http://ellekar.dk/Media/35/Uddrag_35.pdf
In an episode during the pogrom in Lithuanian Kaunas, about half a hundred Jewish men were herded together at an automobile workshop, tortured and then murdered with available tools. The photo shows that among the spectators are both women and uniformed German personnel.
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Mizoch [Mizocz] Shootings [Hille Album]
Mizoch was set up to centralize Jews in part of Western Ukraine; ghetto police sergeant major [Bezirks-Oberwachtmeister] Hille photographed the massacres when it was liquidated
Mizoch was set up to centralize Jews in part of Western Ukraine; ghetto police sergeant major [Bezirks-Oberwachtmeister] Hille photographed the massacres when it was liquidated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizoch_Ghetto
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17876 shows Jewish women and children forced to undress before being shot
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17876 shows Jewish women and children forced to undress before being shot: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1065458
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17877 shows naked Jewish women and children waiting in line to be executed by Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17877 shows naked Jewish women and children waiting in line to be executed by Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1065461
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17878 shows a Nazi officer shooting surviving women
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17878 shows a Nazi officer shooting surviving women: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1065469
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17879 shows a Nazi officer preparing to shoot the two remaining children
1942 October 14: USHMM photo 17879 shows a Nazi officer preparing to shoot the two remaining children: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1065471
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Ponary Massacres: Schroff Photos [Schroff Album]
Tomkiewicz: 80k people were executed at Ponary [Paneriai]: 72k Jewish people (many from Vilna [Vilnius] ghetto), 5k Soviet POWs, 1.5-2k Poles, 1-2k Communists were exeucted at the Ponary massacre
Tomkiewicz: 80k people were executed at Ponary [Paneriai]: 72k Jewish people (many from Vilna [Vilnius] ghetto), 5k Soviet POWs, 1.5-2k Poles, 1-2k Communists were exeucted at the Ponary massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponary_massacre https://www.google.com/books/edition/Zbrodnia_w_Ponarach_1941_1944/i8arPgAACAAJ
1941 July: Yad Vashem photographs 4613/915 and 4613/916 show one of the six "murder pits", in which Jews are led with bags over their heads by Lithuanian collaborators to their executions
1941 July: Yad Vashem photographs 4613/915 and 4613/916 show one of the six "murder pits", in which Jews are led with bags over their heads by Lithuanian collaborators to their executions: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=25580 https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=26903
Schroff only took two photographs
Schroff only took two photographs: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/12/mattogno-on-mass-graves-at-ponary-part-4.html
There are two photos in the Yad Vashem archives showing scenes similar to those described by Pfl ger, Hamann and Schroff, but apparently taken by someone other than Schroff (though one is captioned as being from Schroff), as Schroff only mentioned two photos in his testimony.
more Ponary photos? xxx
Einsatzgruppen Photographs: Ponary Massacres: Not Schroff
Yad Vashem photograph 75FO4 shows many people kneeling with hands on their heads in a Ponary murder pit with armed guards
Yad Vashem photograph 75FO4 shows many people kneeling with hands on their heads in a Ponary murder pit with armed guards: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=100107
unknown source photograph shows the same scene but with all people standing
unknown source photograph shows the same scene but with all people standing:
Yad Vashem photograph 75EO4 shows two Jewish people in Ponary prior to execution
Yad Vashem photograph 75EO4 shows two Jewish people in Ponary prior to execution: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=100101
Einsatzgruppen Killings: Bronna Gora
Einsatzgruppen Killings: Polonka
Einsatzgruppen Killings: Byrdgoszcz
Einsatzgruppen Killings: Stanislawow
Eastern Mass Killings: Bloody Wednesday Olkusz
Yad Vashem photograph FA214/125 shows Jewish bodies lined on the ground after Bloody Sunday
Yad Vashem photograph FA214/125 shows Jewish bodies lined on the ground after Bloody Sunday: https://photos.yadvashem.org/photo-details.html?language=en&item_id=83942
Warsaw Ghetto Photographs: Stroop Report [Stroop Album]
1943 April 20 to 1943 May 16: Stroop Report: There is no Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw anymore! [Es gibt keinen judischen Wohnbezirk in Warschau mehr!]
1943 April 20 to 1943 May 16: Stroop Report: There is no Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw anymore! [Es gibt keinen judischen Wohnbezirk in Warschau mehr!] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_Report
IPN 2013: Stroop Report
NARA #6003996: Stroop Report
^ Captured Hehalutz fighters photograph: IPN copy #26
^ Warsaw Ghetto boy: NARA copy #17, IPN copy #14
^ Warsaw Ghetto boy: NARA copy #17, IPN copy #14: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_boy
Euthanasia Program: Extension of American Eugenics
Bauer 2019
Euthanasia Program: Action T4 Aktion T4
locations: Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, Miedzyrzecz [Meseritz-Obrawalde], Sonnenstein
locations: Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, Miedzyrzecz [Meseritz-Obrawalde], Sonnenstein
Bernburg
Brandenburg
Grafeneck
Hadamar
Hartheim
Miedzyrzecz
Sonnenstein
Action T4 was ended in August of 1941 due to civilian and church skepticism and disapproval. However, during the short few years that the program was in effect, an estimated (although probably significantly higher) 80,000 individuals were murdered. Among those murdered were those with schizophrenia, epilepsy, senile diseases, paralysis, encephalitis, Huntington s disease, feeblemindedness, and those patients were not of German descent and those who were criminally insane (Friedlander, 1997, p. 110).
Action T4 was ended in August of 1941 due to civilian and church skepticism and disapproval. However, during the short few years that the program was in effect, an estimated (although probably significantly higher) 80,000 individuals were murdered. Among those murdered were those with schizophrenia, epilepsy, senile diseases, paralysis, encephalitis, Huntington s disease, feeblemindedness, and those patients were not of German descent and those who were criminally insane (Friedlander, 1997, p. 110).
Euthanasia Program: Child Killings
Reichsausschu zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung von erb- und anlagebedingten schweren Leiden / organization: Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses
Reichsausschu zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung von erb- und anlagebedingten schweren Leiden / organization: Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_euthanasia_in_Nazi_Germany
todo xxx important this is updated and goes beyond the old studies which just focus on the known files
todo xxx important friedlander 1995
todo xxx important friedlander 1995
^ Friedlander, H. (1997). Origins of Nazi genocide: From euthanasia to the final solution. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press
^ Friedlander, H. (1997). Origins of Nazi genocide: From euthanasia to the final solution. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press
death toll estimate from jurisprudence
another possible source
check this for sources
Euthanasia Program: Action T4 Aktion T4: Hartheim Register
Hartheim register
~70,000 patient files in the initial 1940-1941 period, ~30,000 files survived; they are listed here
Rotzoll et al 2006: an internal document from 24 August 1941 puts the number of euthanasia victims at 70,273
Rotzoll et al 2006: an internal document from 24 August 1941 puts the number of euthanasia victims at 70,273: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/IMH0020-7411350302 https://sci-hub.se/10.2753/IMH0020-7411350302 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/973752653152682004/rotzoll2006.pdf
On August 24, 1941, Hitler put a stop to the gassings within the official framework of the T4 Program. According to an internal statistic from the head office, up to that time 70,273 patients had been killed in the six extermination centers Grafeneck/ W rttemberg, Brandenburg/Havel, Hartheim near Linz in Upper Austria, Sonnenstein/Pirna in Saxony, Bernburg/Saale and Hadamar in Hessen.
Euthanasia Program for Concentration Camps: Action 14f13 Aktion 14f13
An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people were killed during Action 14f13 (Friedlander, 1997, p. 150). This number, though small, provided the Nazis with a yet another bridge to mass murder.
An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people were killed during Action 14f13 (Friedlander, 1997, p. 150). This number, though small, provided the Nazis with a yet another bridge to mass murder.
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/Meseritz-Obrawalde.html
The exact number of patients killed will never be known since only a portion of the institutional records survived, but even the most conservative estimate of 6,991 patients killed exceeds more than three times the hospital's maximum occupancy. A less conservative but probably more accurate estimate by the post-war German judiciary placed the number of handicapped patients killed at Meseritz-Obrawalde at more than 10,000. Some sources suggest as many as 18,000 victims.
Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, Unv. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1995.
Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, Unv. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1995.
Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Papermac, London, 1990.
Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Papermac, London, 1990.
Harald Jenner, Joachim Klieme, (Hg.), Nationalsozialistische Euthanasie -verbrechen und Einrichtungen der Inneren Mission: eine bersicht. Reutlingen 1997., 284ff
Harald Jenner, Joachim Klieme, (Hg.), Nationalsozialistische Euthanasie -verbrechen und Einrichtungen der Inneren Mission: eine bersicht. Reutlingen 1997., 284ff https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/40363073 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Nationalsozialistische_Euthanasieverbrec/toArAAAAYAAJ
Proctor 1988: child killing: citation 43: mitscherlich mielke medizin ohne menschlichkeit pp 191 & 212
Proctor 1988: child killing: citation 43: mitscherlich mielke medizin ohne menschlichkeit pp 191 & 212 https://archive.org/details/racialhygiene00robe/page/n233/mode/2up table of death locations citation 51 Aly Medizin gegen Unbrauchbare 1985 p 23 // Roll 18 T-1021 National Archives Washington DC https://archive.org/details/racialhygiene00robe/page/n235/mode/2up
Aly 1985
Comparisons to Stalin
Timothy Snyder 2011, liberal historian of Eastern European atrocities (he wrote a whole triology, "Bloodlands", on the subject)
Timothy Snyder 2011, liberal historian of Eastern European atrocities (he wrote a whole triology, "Bloodlands", on the subject): https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/ Today, after two decades of access to Eastern European archives, and thanks to the work of German, Russian, Israeli, and other scholars, we can resolve the question of numbers. The total number of noncombatants killed by the Germans about 11 million is roughly what we had thought. The total number of civilians killed by the Soviets, however, is considerably less than we had believed. We know now that the Germans killed more people than the Soviets did.
Steven Wheatcroft 1996, liberal historian of Soviet history
Steven Wheatcroft 1996, liberal historian of Soviet history: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/09668139608412415 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/854781720234557441/wheatcroft1996.pdf
The nature of Soviet repression and mass killing was clearly far more complex than normally assumed. Mass purposive killings in terms of executions were probably in the order of one million and probably as large as the total number of recorded deaths in the Gulag. In this narrowest category of purposefully caused deaths, the situation is exactly the opposite to that generally accepted. Hitler caused the murder of at least 5 million innocent people largely, it would appear, because he did not like Jews and communists. Stalin by contrast can be charged with causing the purposive death of something in the order of a million people. Furthermore the purposive deaths caused by Hitler fit more closely into the category of 'murder', while those caused by Stalin fit more closely the category of 'execution'. Stalin undoubtedly caused many innocent people to be executed, but it seems likely that he thought many of them guilty of crimes against the state and felt that the execution of others would act as a deterent to the guilty. He signed the papers and insisted on documentation. Hitler, by contrast, wanted to be rid of the Jews and communists simply because they were Jews and communists. He was not concerned about making any pretence at legality. He was careful not to sign anything on this matter and was equally insistent on no documentation. It is only when we get into the broader categories of causing death by criminal neglect and ruthlessness that Stalin probably74 exceeds Hitler, but here we have to remember that the USSR was much larger than Germany and that death rates in the best of times had always been significantly higher in Russia than in Germany.
History
Guess where was the last Jewish ghetto in the world? As a hint, it's called the Roman ghetto.
Guess where was the last Jewish ghetto in the world? As a hint, it's called the Roman ghetto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ghetto
Guess where was the last place to ban castration of boys to produce singing castrati? As a hint, it rhymes with The Bapal States.
Guess where was the last place to ban castration of boys to produce singing castrati? As a hint, it rhymes with The Bapal States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato
In 1870, the Kingdom of Italy conquered Rome. For 59 years afterward, popes refused to leave the Vatican to avoid being seen as beholden to a state. They were called Prisoners in the Vatican.
In 1870, the Kingdom of Italy conquered Rome. For 59 years afterward, popes refused to leave the Vatican to avoid being seen as beholden to a state. They were called Prisoners in the Vatican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_in_the_Vatican
Guess who let the prisoners out? In 1929, the Pope signed a treaty with Mussolini establish the modern Vatican City.
Guess who let the prisoners out? In 1929, the Pope signed a treaty with Mussolini establish the modern Vatican City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateran_Treaty
Lateran accords and Pope-fascist alliances
Lateran accords and Pope-fascist alliances: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
With the Lateran Accords, the pope and the Duce entered into a peculiar partnership. Each saw himself as heading a totalitarian organization, a term they both embraced. It could have only one head and demanded total loyalty. The pope was eager to use the Fascists power to resurrect a Catholic state, although he was not so foolish as to think he could ever Christianize Mussolini. The Duce was eager to use the power of the Church to solidify his own rule, but in his view the Catholic clergy were to be the handmaidens of the Fascist government, tools to ensure popular support for the regime.
Ideology: Background
A 1929 Guardian article describes the Vatican as sharing with fascims support for anti-liberalism, authoritarainism, and anti-socialism
A 1929 Guardian article describes the Vatican as sharing with fascims support for anti-liberalism, authoritarainism, and anti-socialism: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/feb/14/archive-fascism-and-vatican
One thing seems to be sure Mussolini has achieved a great diplomatic success, perhaps the greatest of his career. On this there is general agreement. His gain is absolute. Whether the Vatican's gain is so absolute, seems a little uncertain. There is evidently much Italian nationalist sentiment in the Vatican itself. In other words, the Vatican has considerable Fascist sympathies. Pope Pius XI is credited with much admiration for Mussolini. That the Italian clergy as a whole are pro-Fascist is easy to understand, seeing that Fascism is a nationalist, authoritarian, anti-liberal, and anti-Socialist force.
here's how historian Giuliana Chamdes describes it
here's how historian Giuliana Chamdes describes it: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf
In order to weaken the Soviet Union and the global appeal of communism, the Vatican agreed to a tactical cooperation with Nazi-Fascist forces in a number of on-the-ground campaigns. The Vatican often took the initiative in doing so, even as it increasingly distanced itself in doctrinal terms from the Fascist and Nazi project.
the Pope argued that Nazi Germany was bad because it was pagan and totalitarian, very unlike Italy which was good because it was Catholic and totalitarian
the Pope argued that Nazi Germany was bad because it was pagan and totalitarian, very unlike Italy which was good because it was Catholic and totalitarian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
For the Vatican, it was becoming increasingly important to dierentiate between the two totalitarian states. Immediately following Mussolini s visit to Germany, La Civilt cattolica published a piece making just this distinction. People who equated Nazi Germany with Fascist Italy, the journal argued, do a great injustice to the Fascist Regime. Hitler was seeking to unify the German people under a new, pagan religion, its slogan the divinity of the blood and the soil. Mussolini was doing the opposite, unifying Italians under the Catholic religion. The two could scarcely be more different.9
Ideology: Anti-Nazi
the Catholic Church's disagreed with fascism about nationalism and disagreed with Nazism about the Jews, but they completely endorsed the authoritarian and theocratic elements of fascism.
the Catholic Church's disagreed with fascism about nationalism and disagreed with Nazism about the Jews, but they completely endorsed the authoritarian and theocratic elements of fascism. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf
Instead of following those Nazi and Fascist theorists who presented communism as a Judaic plot for world conquest, the Secretariat argued that communism was at heart Godless and atheistic: the latest manifestation of efforts to sustain the legacy of the French Revolution and remove the Catholic Church from public life. [....] However, the Secretariat s attempt to assert independence from Nazi-Fascism was imperfectly echoed by its on-the-ground initiatives. In this practical domain, Vatican anti-communism became increasingly imbricated with the anti-communism of Nazi, Fascist and proto-Fascist forces.
the Pope argued that Nazi Germany was bad because it was pagan and totalitarian, very unlike Italy which was good because it was Catholic and totalitarian
the Pope argued that Nazi Germany was bad because it was pagan and totalitarian, very unlike Italy which was good because it was Catholic and totalitarian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
For the Vatican, it was becoming increasingly important to dierentiate between the two totalitarian states. Immediately following Mussolini s visit to Germany, La Civilt cattolica published a piece making just this distinction. People who equated Nazi Germany with Fascist Italy, the journal argued, do a great injustice to the Fascist Regime. Hitler was seeking to unify the German people under a new, pagan religion, its slogan the divinity of the blood and the soil. Mussolini was doing the opposite, unifying Italians under the Catholic religion. The two could scarcely be more different.9
Ideology: Authoritarian
in 1937 Pius XI wrote that we must restore "authority, order, and hierarchy" according to "the principles of the Catholic Church"
in 1937 Pius XI wrote that we must restore "authority, order, and hierarchy" according to "the principles of the Catholic Church": https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf
Fascist sympathizer Henri Bordeaux informed the Pope in a private letter, explaining how his personal biases might shape his literary judgments. Democratic governments, he noted, lead people slowly but surely to socialism and communism! Instead, what was needed was a strong, nationalistic government interested in protecting order and religious authority . Perhaps Bordeaux noted some of these viewpoints could be encouraged by the competition announcement and play a mandated role in the selection process.50 Having expressed his immense pleasure with Bordeaux s recommendations, Pius XI agreed on the need to restore authority, order, and hierarchy , according to the principles of the Catholic Church . Because communists and liberal individualists (qua partisans of democracy) did not understand this, prize-winning novels should certainly celebrate authority and the Catholic religion.51 [....] The Pope accordingly suggested that it would be best for the book prize to reward anti-democratic, authoritarian, and religious political thinking, but be wary of lending support to extreme forms of nationalism that might be damaging to the Church and dilute its claims to standing at the helm of a transnational anti-communist movement.
in 1938, Pope Pius XII wrote that support for state totalitarianism was absurd, but not for the reason you'd think. he wrote that, "if there is a totalitarian regime in fact and by right it is the regime of the church, because man belongs totally to the church"
in 1938, Pope Pius XII wrote that support for state totalitarianism was absurd, but not for the reason you'd think. he wrote that, "if there is a totalitarian regime in fact and by right it is the regime of the church, because man belongs totally to the church": https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
In 1938, Pope Pius XI addressed a group of visitors to the Vatican. There were some people, he said, who argued that the state should be all-powerful "totalitarian". Such an idea, he went on, was absurd, not because individual liberty was too precious to be surrendered, but because "if there is a totalitarian regime in fact and by right it is the regime of the church, because man belongs totally to the church".
Ideology: Action
the Catholic church explicitly justified state violence against communism, which it called "Civic Action"
the Catholic church explicitly justified state violence against communism, which it called "Civic Action": https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf
The Catholic battle against communism was not simply a metaphorical one. During his unprecedented 1936 trip to the United States of America, Eugenio Pacelli received several requests of papal support for the use of violence in Mexico from a range of English- and Spanish-language clerics. In place of the Vatican s network of civil society organizations known as Catholic Action, Pacelli s interlocutors affirmed that Mexico needed Civic Action . They defined Civic Action as the same liberty of action against communism accorded to Spanish Catholics : that is, armed defense .77
the Catholic Church actively worked with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to jam Radio Moscow
the Catholic Church actively worked with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to jam Radio Moscow: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf
In the increasingly polarized political climate of the late 1930s, the Fascist regime and Nazi Germany began to work more closely with the Secretariat. The Fascist secret police granted the Secretariat special permission to import over 50 banned publications to facilitate up-to-date coverage of communism s real and imagined expansion. The Gestapo having welcomed the circulation of the Secretariat s German-language journal likely offered similar dispensations.59 Additionally, the Secretariat finalized a complex three-way agreement in the spring of 1936 between Italy, Germany and the Vatican, regarding the joint surveillance and jamming of signals of Radio Moscow.60 [....] The German Jesuit Gustav Gundlach no less than the figure to whom Ledo chowski had initially offered leadership of the Secretariat worried that Hitler might gain moral sustenance from the Secretariat s actions. The Secretariat s willingness to partner with the Nazis in particular might well have had the effect of confusing Catholics in Germany and elsewhere weakening the moral influence of the Church .62
Ideology: 1937 Encyclical
Pope Pius XII wrote three encyclicals in 1937. at the same time: one about Nazi Germany, one about the Soviet Union, and one about revolutionary Mexico. at first, he was only going to critique Nazi Germany -- but the Vatican Secretariat of Atheism convinced him to critique the Soviet Union and Mexico as well. and in all three, the pope's critiques were strongest revolution and against atheism, while his critiques of nationalism were an afterthought
Pope Pius XII wrote three encyclicals in 1937. at the same time: one about Nazi Germany, one about the Soviet Union, and one about revolutionary Mexico. at first, he was only going to critique Nazi Germany -- but the Vatican Secretariat of Atheism convinced him to critique the Soviet Union and Mexico as well. and in all three, the pope's critiques were strongest revolution and against atheism, while his critiques of nationalism were an afterthought: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf
Much has been written on Pope Pius XI s triple encyclicals of March 1937, which addressed Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Mexico, respectively. However, few scholars have noted the extent to which the Pope conceived of the three texts as integrally interrelated, and none have commented on the fact that the Secretariat on Atheism contributed decisively to their drafting. In April of 1936, the Superior General of the Jesuits responded to the news that Vatican theologians were in the midst of writing a theological critique of Nazism by informing the Pope that it was more urgent to draft an encyclical condemning atheistic communism , given the Soviet s ever-more intense propaganda , and the need for Catholics and others to unite in a more energetic and better-organized resistance . Your Holiness will pardon my boldness , Ledo chowski affirmed, suggesting that Secretariat personnel would be ideally suited to composing said text.64 Pius XI immediately accepted the proposal and put the head of the Secretariat on Atheism to work.65
Pope Pius XI actually watered down the 1937 encyclical on Nazism
Pope Pius XI actually watered down the 1937 encyclical on Nazism: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf
In November of 1936, the clerics responsible for the as-yet-unpublished theological critique of Nazism received the cryptic news that the Pope was going to do something about their work,67 and in mid March of 1937 the Pope informed them that an encyclical in preparation would supersede their efforts.68 When Pius XI issued three encyclicals for global consumption shortly thereafter, the work on Nazism was marginalized, as the theologians involved in the theological attack on Nazism noted with displeasure.69 Ledit s reflections, however, figured prominently, as did the Secretariat on Atheism s underlying message: while the Vatican could work with Nazi-Fascist forces, any form of reconciliation with the Soviet Union was impossible
Jesuit involvement in anti-Judaism
Jesuit involvement in anti-Judaism: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-catholic-church-got-in-bed-with-mussolini
Father Tacchi Venturi became the pope s personal envoy to Mussolini; the Jesuit wanted secret police to spy on Italy s Jewish bankers and was fully behind Mussolini s hammer-stroke nationalism. In 1938 the pope summoned Father John LaFarge, a New York Jesuit and author of Interracial Justice, asking him to secretly draft an encyclical on what the pope considered to be the most burning questions of the day: racism and anti-Semitism, writes Kertzer. I am stunned. The Rock of Peter has fallen upon my head, LaFarge told a friend. He ran into opposition from the Superior General of his own order, Father Wlodzimierz Led chowski, a Pole who harbored hostile views of Jewish people and insisted on providing two priests to assist LaFarge. Led chowski arranged for the encyclical to be watered down and worked with others to have it tabled as the pope faced his final illness.
Holocaust: Church Antisemitism
Pius XI told Mussolini that the church had long seen the need to "rein in the children of Israel" and to take "protective measures against their evil-doing"
Pius XI told Mussolini that the church had long seen the need to "rein in the children of Israel" and to take "protective measures against their evil-doing": https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
As David Kertzer demonstrates repeatedly in this nuanced book, to be critical of fascism in Italy in the 30s was not necessarily to be liberal or a lover of democracy. And to be antisemitic was not to be unchristian. The Pope told Mussolini that the church had long seen the need to "rein in the children of Israel" and to take "protective measures against their evil-doing". The Vatican and the fascist regime had many differences, but this they had in common.
the Jesuit publication La Civilta Cattolica, which the Vatican had editorial control of, published a famous 1922 article that falsely claimed 447 of 545 of the highest Bolshevik officials were Jewish, a justification that Nazis happily took up
the Jesuit publication La Civilta Cattolica, which the Vatican had editorial control of, published a famous 1922 article that falsely claimed 447 of 545 of the highest Bolshevik officials were Jewish, a justification that Nazis happily took up: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
THE CHARGE THAT JEWS were the evil force behind a worldwide conspiracy against Christianity and European civilization had long been heard in the Vatican; the Jesuits of La Civilt cattolica were among its most avid proponents. A feature article, titled The World Revolution and the Jews, had appeared in the Vatican-supervised journal in late October 1922, as the Fascists were marching on Rome. [....] A list of the 545 highest ocials of the Bolshevik regime revealed, the author claimed, that true Russians numbered no more than thirty. Those of the Jewish race comprise a full 447 ; the rest were a hodgepodge of other nationalities. In short, although Jews comprised less than five percent of Russia s population, this tiny minority today has invaded all the avenues of power and imposes its dictatorship on the nation. 33 The 1922 article has great signicance, for its argument would be used by the Nazis as a central justication for their anti-Semitic campaign. Taken up by Church publications throughout Italy and beyond, the myth that the Russian revolutionary leaders were virtually all Jewish and not real Russians became one of the most important, and deadly, rationales for government action against Europe s Jews.34
Pius XI told Mussolini that the Bolsheviks were Jews
Pius XI told Mussolini that the Bolsheviks were Jews: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
Finally the pope expressed his distress at what was going on in Russia where, he said, the Bolsheviks were intent on destroying Christianity. Beneath this, said Pius, there is also the antiChristian loathing of Judaism. When he was nuncio in Poland, he recalled, I saw that in all the Bolshevik regiments the civilian commissars were Jews. The pope thought Italy s Jews an exception. He fondly told the Duce of a Jew in Milan who had made a major gift to the church, and of the help that Milan s rabbi had given him in deciphering certain nuances of the Hebrew language.
you might think they made a mistake and let that one little antisemitic article slip through, but you'd be wrong -- the very next month, the journal published an article titled "Jewish-Masonic Socialism Tyrannizes Austria". and David Kertzer documents that these publications went on and on into the 1930's
you might think they made a mistake and let that one little antisemitic article slip through, but you'd be wrong -- the very next month, the journal published an article titled "Jewish-Masonic Socialism Tyrannizes Austria". and David Kertzer documents that these publications went on and on into the 1930's: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/06/pope-mussolini-secret-history-rise-fascism-david-kertzer-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pope_and_Mussolini https://books.google.com/books?id=Xc3QAgAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/2329935/d08ef6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713803664518808037/kertzer2014-compressed.pdf
The next issue of La Civilt cattolica, the rst to appear after Mussolini came to power, carried news from Austria under the headline Jewish-Masonic Socialism Tyrannizes Austria. Following the Great War, the journal reported, Vienna s nineteen Masonic lodges had formed a Grand Lodge. All of its high functionaries, without exception, were Jews. Their goal was to rule the world under the domination of the Masons, themselves under the Jews power. If the Jews in Vienna got their way, the journal warned, Vienna will be nothing but a Jewish city, houses and belongings will all be theirs, the Jews will be the bosses and lords, the Christians their servants. Austria, La Civilt cattolica concluded, will be absolutely the subject, tributary and slave of the Jews, this in short is the guiding idea of our socialist Jewish-Masonic leaders. 35
historian Paul O'Shea
historian Paul O'Shea: http://paulonpius.blogspot.com/2011/07/william-doino-jews-and-pius-xii-more-of.html
There is no evidence that he [Pacelli] objected to the anti-Jewish rants of Civilt Cattolica, which, as Secretary of State to Pius XI, he at least tacitly approved. The Pope or his Secretary of State gave the final fiat for the editorial content of the journal. There is no way that Cardinal Pacelli could not have known of the Judeophobia written in Civilt .
David Kertzer
review of various books
Holocaust: 1943 Roman Ghetto Raid
there is no direct evidence that the Pope ordered citizens to take in Jews and the Pope was mostly unaware of citizens actually doing so
there is no direct evidence that the Pope ordered citizens to take in Jews and the Pope was mostly unaware of citizens actually doing so: https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article-abstract/18/2/255/829245 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/hgs/dch064 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713446548285161542/zuccotti2004.pdf
Little evidence supports the notion that Pius XII delivered a directive to members of the Catholic Church to help Jews during the German occupa- tion of Italy, argues the author of this article. That many such men and women did open their doors is well known, and several thousand Jews in Italy were saved as a result. The pope and his advisers knew that many Jews, along with many more non-Jewish fugitives from the Nazis and Fascists, were hiding in religious institutions outside Vatican City, and being sheltered individually in prelates residences in Vatican City itself. How- ever, they seem not to have been aware of the full extent of the rescue effort, nor to have ordered it initially.
review of Thomas 2012 finds his evidence uncompelling
review of Thomas 2012 finds his evidence uncompelling: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-ecclesiastical-history/article/popes-jews-the-vaticans-secret-plan-to-save-jews-from-the-nazis-by-gordon-thomas-pp-xx3148-plates-new-york-st-martins-press-2012-2799-978-0-312-60421-9-soldier-of-christ-the-life-of-pope-pius-xii-by-robert-a-ventresca-pp-vii40514-blackandwhite-plates-cambridge-malondon-the-belknap-press-of-harvard-university-press-2013-25-978-0-674-04961-1/B2742A3814C433A21C816EBA70D553D7 https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/S002204691300239X
Gordon Thomas s retelling of the highly dramatic months 1943 4 after Rome was occupied by German troops but before its liberation by the Allies is composed in flash-back form, with vivid short episodes taking place one after another in various parts of the city. His main claim, however, that Pope Pius had a secret plan to assist the Jews of Rome, still lacks verification. Thomas provides no sources but relies on the oral testimony of survivors. He seeks to prove that the pope had a long affinity with the Jewish colony on the other side of the Tiber, and sought to assist them clandestinely by all possible means. His instructions were supposedly given orally. But while many Jews were given refuge in Catholic institutions, Thomas s assertion that this was Pius top priority lacks substantiation, which may or may not be found in the Vatican archives.
Gorsky
Spain: Church Actions: Pre-Civil War
in 1931 Cardinal Pacelli, who would later become Pope Pius XII, echoed conservative Catholic conspiracy theories that Republican Spain was a sinister Bolshevik plot to conquer Catholic Spain
in 1931 Cardinal Pacelli, who would later become Pope Pius XII, echoed conservative Catholic conspiracy theories that Republican Spain was a sinister Bolshevik plot to conquer Catholic Spain: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0022009414566291 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713439222933225502/chamedes2015.pdf [unformatted]
The ground for the Vatican anti-communist turn was laid by Pacelli in the spring of 1931. At this point, Pacelli s notes to the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs become preoccupied with the newly proclaimed Spanish Republic. In particular, Pacelli used his platform at the Congregation to argue that the Spanish Republic was in fact a sinister Bolshevik plot to conquer Catholic Spain , as evidenced by supposed covert Soviet funding and Spain s launching of an anti-religious campaign. There was little originality in Pacelli s claim: in fact, he was simply echoing opinions he read in letters directed to him by a large number of Spanish bishops
Fr Hilari Raguer
Fr Hilari Raguer: https://books.google.com/books?id=hBvxAl22YjUC On the outbreak of Spanish Civil War the great majority, that is to say nearly the entire hierarchy of the Spanish Church, and nearly all the prominent among the laity, not only did nothing to restrain the conflict but spurred it on by joining almost en bloc one of the two sides, the side that ended by being the victor, and by demonizing whoever was working for peace. The Spanish Church [-] heated up the atmosphere before it started and added fuel to the flames afterwards. [unformatted]
Mary Vincent: p.248 ch 8; p.121
Mary Vincent: p.248 ch 8; p.121 https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206132.001.0001/acprof-9780198206132 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/93ab/59da19526f450b7f300d424e8c685ccd25bf.pdf wp summary: Following elections in June 1931, the new parliament approved an amended constitutional draft on 9 December 1931. The constitution introduced, civil marriage and divorce. It also established free, secular education for all. However, anti-clerical laws nationalized Church properties and required the Church to pay rent for the use of properties which it had previously owned. In addition, the government forbade public manifestations of Catholicism such as processions on religious feast days, banished the crucifix from schools; the Jesuits were expelled. Catholic schools continued, but outside the state system, and in 1933 further legislation banned all monks and nuns from teaching. [unformatted]
The Church was to become the most important source of legitimation for the rebellious generals, justifying the rising as a crusade against godlessness, anarchy and communism. Although such a close identification with the Nationalist cause was not to be fully elaborated until the Spanish hierarchy's joint pastoral letter of July 1937, there was no doubt that the Church would line up with the rebels against the Republic. Nor, at local level, was there any hesitancy. The only sizeable group of Catholics to remain loyal to the republic were the Basques.
Victor M Perez-Diaz: p.128
Victor M Perez-Diaz: p.128 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674766891 [unformatted]
The church reacted to all this by mobilizing the mass of peasants and the middle classes and channeling them into professional and political right wing organisations prepared for by decades of careful organisation. The extreme right took upon itself the task of conspiring to overthrow the regime. The moderate right refused to state its unambiguous loyalty to the new institutions and openly flirted with authoritarianism.
Spain: Church Actions: Civil War
the Catholic Church hierarchy supported Franco within two months: they let Franco use Church property as his headquarters, voted to support his side in the civil war, and called the Republicans godless
the Catholic Church hierarchy supported Franco within two months: they let Franco use Church property as his headquarters, voted to support his side in the civil war, and called the Republicans godless: https://search.proquest.com/docview/871630989?pq-origsite=gscholar https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713440211538935938/domke11.pdf [unformatted]
Within thirty days of the outbreak of the war, Church leaders spoke in favor of the military movement. Shortly after that, Spanish Archbishop Pla y Deniel offered Franco the archdiocesan residence in Salamanca for his official headquarters. On September 30, 1936, Bishop Pla, in a pastoral sermon, said that the Church could not be criticized, because it has openly and officially spoken in favor of order against anarchy, in favor of establishing a hierarchical government against dissolvent communism, in favor of the defense of Christian civilization and its bases, religion, fatherland and family, against those without God and against God, and without fatherland.19 With only three (out of fifteen) dissentions, a Collective Letter endorsing General Franco s struggle in the Civil War was signed by the Spanish church hierarchy, though the letter did not endorse a specific form of government.
the Roman Catholic Church legitimized the killing by the Civil Guard and the Falange as the defense of Christendom
the Roman Catholic Church legitimized the killing by the Civil Guard and the Falange as the defense of Christendom: https://www.antonybeevor.com/book/the-battle-for-spain-%E2%80%A8the-spanish-civil-war-1936-1939/ https://u1lib.org/book/1220743/7b846d http://zlibraryexau2g3p.onion/book/1220743/7b846d [unformatted]
Cardinal Gom stated that 'Jews and Masons poisoned the national soul with absurd doctrine'... A few brave priests put their lives at risk by criticizing nationalist atrocities, but the majority of the clergy in nationalist areas revelled in their new-found power and the increased size of their congregations. Anyone who did not attend Mass faithfully was likely to be suspected of 'red' tendencies. Entrepreneurs made a great money selling religious symbols. [....] It was reminiscent of the way the Inquisition's persecutions of Jews and Moors helped make pork such an important part of the Spanish diet.
Montero 2007
Montero 2007: https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/otros-martires-de-la-guerra-civil/ [unformatted]
The Church, which upheld the idea of a 'National Crusade' in order to legitimize the military rebellion, was a belligerent part during the Civil War, even at the cost of alienating part of its members. It continues in a belligerent role in its unusual answer to the Historical Memory Law by recurring to the beatification of 498 "martyrs" of the Civil War. The priests executed by Franco's Army are not counted among them. It continues to be a Church that is incapable of transcending its one-sided behaviour of 70 years ago and amenable to the fact that this past should always haunt us. In this political use of granting religious recognition one can perceive its indignation regarding the compensations to the victims of Francoism. Its selective criteria regarding the religious persons that were part of its ranks are difficult to fathom. The priests who were victims of the republicans are "martyrs who died forgiving", but those priests who were executed by the Francoists are forgotten.
pope complained to Franco about execution of Catholic priests -- clearly aware of massacres
pope complained to Franco about execution of Catholic priests -- clearly aware of massacres: https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/otros-martires-de-la-guerra-civil/ [unformatted]
Today we also know that in December 1936 a telegram from the Pope complained to Franco about "the execution of Basque Catholic priests", in response to his protests, asking the Church to become more involved in supporting the uprising. There is no doubt, therefore, that the highest ecclesiastical authorities, including the pontiff, were aware of what had happened in Guip zcoa, or of the attitude of the Francoist side towards the religious who did not participate in their political ideas.
Irish Potato Famine (Occurred in a Free Market)
the irish potato famine occurred during a period of lassiez-faire UK domestic and trade policy
the irish potato famine occurred during a period of lassiez-faire UK domestic and trade policy: https://whistlinginthewind.org/2012/08/25/laissez-faire-and-the-irish-great-famine/
ireland was a net exporter during the famine
ireland was a net exporter during the famine: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/irish.pdf One of the most remarkable facts about the famine period is that there was an average monthly export of food from Ireland worth 100,000 Pound Sterling. Almost throughout the five-year famine, Ireland remained a net exporter of food. (31.) Dr. Christine Kinealy, a fellow at the University of Liverpool and the author of two scholarly texts on the Irish Famine: This Great Calamity and A Death-Dealing Famine, says that 9,992 calves were exported from Ireland to England during "Black'47", an increase of thirty-three percent from the previous year. In the twelve months following the second failure of the potato crop, 4,000 horses and ponies were exported. The export of livestock to Britain (with the exception of pigs) increased during the "famine". The export of bacon and ham increased. In total, over three million live animals were exported from Ireland between 1846-50, more than the number of people who emigrated during the famine years.
ireland had previously banned exports during the 82-83 famine
ireland had previously banned exports during the 82-83 famine: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/irish.pdf When Ireland experienced an earlier famine in 1782-83, ports were closed in order to keep home grown food for domestic consumption. Food prices were immediately reduced within Ireland. The merchants lobbied against such efforts, but their protests were over-ridden. Everyone recognized that the interests of the merchants and the distressed people were irreconcilable. In the Great Famine, that recognition was disregarded.
the "English blockade" and "three Turkish ships" are both memes
the "English blockade" and "three Turkish ships" are both memes: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5jcffu/was_englands_role_in_worsening_the_potato_famine/ https://mikedashhistory.com/2014/12/29/queen-victorias-5-the-strange-tale-of-turkish-aid-to-ireland-during-the-great-famine/ According to the researches of Brendan Matthews, one of these ships was probably Prussian: she was named the Meta, and her home port was Stettin, on the Baltic Sea. The other two, however, came from the Balkans, which were then still under Ottoman control. They were the Porcupine and the Ann two rather English names for ships and they apparently had English masters, for their names were Cleveland and Cloid (Floyd?) Nonetheless, they had sailed from Ottoman Sel nik (today Thessaloniki, in modern Greece). All three merchantmen carried cargoes of wheat and Indian corn cheap maize, one of Ireland s principal imports during the famine years. This is a remarkable find more so given the rarity of foreign commerce in small Irish ports in those days but it is only fair to point out that the newspapers contain a strong indication that the cargoes of the Porcupine and the Ann were trade goods, not charity; they were consigned to local merchants based in Louth and Meath, who it might be expected would sell them rather than give them away. Speculation in imported corn, moreover, was scarcely unheard-of two years into the Great Famine; the Ottomans grew it, and the owners of the Porcupine and the Ann presumably knew that they did.
Wheat Exports
wheat exports went up, not down, during the 1876-78 famine
unformatted
Payment for Railroads
Indian subjects paid for British railways, which mostly benefitted British finance
Indian subjects paid for British railways, which mostly benefitted British finance: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/financing-indias-imperial-railways-18751914/indian-railways-and-famines-18751914-magic-wheels-and-empty-stomachs/394F01F6B0F498022F5E9AAA3DB35869 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/701849862752436344/sweeney2014.pdf
The wish to avoid inefficient competition between parallel railway lines encouraged the granting of concessions to construct the lines as regional monopolies. Permanent Undersecretary of State at the India Office, Louis Mallet, had little fear of channelling profits from such monopolies towards capitalists rather than the general taxpayer. Mallet viewed a more egalitarian distribution of railway earnings as akin to the nationalization of the land, and other communistic theories .
By 1892-93, the Southern Mahratta was still earning a derisory return of 1.47 percent while Indian taxpayers were subsidising shareholders up to the minimum 3.5 percent guarantee. With the retum of more acute famines in the 1890s, the Southern Mahratta investment should have paid off in avoiding the vast human suffering and financial expense incurred in the 1870s. Sadly, nationalist fears about affordability of food were correct, and peasants starved.
By the previous year, the British had spent 160 million on railways against a paltry 20 million on irrigation.
Indian subjects paid for British railways, which mostly benefitted British finance during Indian famines
Indian subjects paid for British railways, which mostly benefitted British finance during Indian famines: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/financing-indias-imperial-railways-18751914/indian-railways-and-famines-18751914-magic-wheels-and-empty-stomachs/394F01F6B0F498022F5E9AAA3DB35869 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/701849862752436344/sweeney2014.pdf
While railways had increased living standards through trade and growth, this had been accompanied by rising rates and taxes payable, according to testimony given to the 1898 Famine Commission.
During the 1896-1897 famine, officials channelled some 95 percent of Burmese famine relief toward the Meiktila-Myingyan Railway. Burma used this improved rail infrastructure to export more wheat to Europe, and extract improved domestic profits. The cheap labor and additional revenue which government famine relief provided for the Burma Railway Company could hardly have provided a better investment story for the hugely oversubscribed IPO the same year.
Railroads Helped Exports
Indian railways helped export grain
Indian railways helped export grain: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/financing-indias-imperial-railways-18751914/indian-railways-and-famines-18751914-magic-wheels-and-empty-stomachs/394F01F6B0F498022F5E9AAA3DB35869 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/701849862752436344/sweeney2014.pdf
Railways had decimated grain stores, and food was exported from Central Provinces (presumably by the guaranteed railway), so undermining self-insurance. Grain price rises in the Central Provinces had been fifty percent to one hundred percent in recent years. The famine protective Bengal Nagpur railway had accelerated price increases in areas like Sambalpur to the extent that locals could not cope, yet that same district showed net exports of food during the famine. The export trade brought new demand and pushed grain prices higher, while the depreciating rupee made Indian grain relatively cheap for English buyers.
In the Sagar (Saugor) district of the same famine protected railway region, the population was said to have increased by 18 percent, cultivable area by 48 percent over 1865-95, while wheat exports by rail increased from 40,000 maunds to 758,000 maunds over 1887-97.
Railroads Didn't Protect Against Famine
many Indian famines were not merely regional, meaning that railroads alone could not stop them
many Indian famines were not merely regional, meaning that railroads alone could not stop them: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/financing-indias-imperial-railways-18751914/indian-railways-and-famines-18751914-magic-wheels-and-empty-stomachs/394F01F6B0F498022F5E9AAA3DB35869 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/701849862752436344/sweeney2014.pdf
Much of the justification for this emphasis on railways relied on the assumption that Indian famines involved regional shortages rather than a lack of food across the subcontinent as a whole. This was a controversial assumption by the late 1890s, when the worst famine conditions in documented history appeared to be afflicting India, despite the decades of investment in famine protective railways. Even a former consultant to the GOI s [Government of India] state railways, Horace Bell, was prepared to challenge this assumption. Bell highlighted the 1898 famine commission observation that the food production of British India was in deficit of eighteen to nineteen million tons over the years 1896-1897, and suggested that an even greater deficiency must have existed in the more widespread famine of 1898-l900. Government-funded food imports could solve food shortages. Railways and the price mechanism would not be sufficient. In fact, the rise in grain prices during these famines failed to encourage grain traders to target the Indian market since export prices to Britain were still higher. Grain wages were required as part of famine relief due to the poverty of the unemployed Indian peasants. Only Burma, within British India, could offer substantial additional foodstuffs (grain and rice), but the shipping and rail costs from that region made the likely grain/rice price prohibitive .
Control of India by Britain
map of British India, the Indian Empire, and the Indian residency system
map of British India, the Indian Empire, and the Indian residency system: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03068370802658666 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/03068370802658666 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/701851557062508554/onley2009.pdf
India (India, Pakistan, Bengladesh), Bhutan, Burma, Aden (ie, Yemen), Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Oman, Somaliland
description of British India
description of British India: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03068370802658666 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/03068370802658666 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/701851557062508554/onley2009.pdf
The Indian Empire is generally regarded as comprising British India and Princely India together.1 British India was formal empire (colonies under direct imperial rule), comprised of seven to seventeen colonial provinces during 1858 1947, each headed by a British governor, lieutenant-governor, or chief commissioner. Princely India was informal empire (protectorates and protected states or territories under indirect imperial rule), comprised of over 600 native states and tribal territories, each with its own ruler or chief overseen by a British resident or agent.
1858 Government of India Act
passed by Parliament, the Government of India Act 1858 gave the Crown the power to appoint the Governor-General
passed by Parliament, the Government of India Act 1858 gave the Crown the power to appoint the Governor-General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_India_Act_1858 https://web.archive.org/web/20080820032456/http://projectsouthasia.sdstate.edu/Docs/history/primarydocs/Political_History/ABKeithDoc028.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170157/http://www.sdstate.edu/projectsouthasia/loader.cfm?csModule=security%2Fgetfile&PageID=861601
XXIX. The appointments of Governor-General of India, fourth ordinary member of the Council of the Governor-General of India; and Governors of Presidencies in India, now made by the Court of Directors with the approbation of Her Majesty, and the appointments of Advocate-General for the several Presidencies now made with the approbation of the Commissioners for the affairs of India, shall be made by Her Majesty by warrant under Her Royal Sign Manual; the appointments of the ordinary members of the Council of the Governor-General of India; except the fourth ordinary member, and the appointments of the Members of Council of the several Presidencies, shall be made by the Secretary of State in Council, with the concurrence of a majority of members present at a meeting [This power was transferred to the Crown by 32 & 33 Vict. c. 97.]; the appointments of the Lieutenant-Governors of provinces or territories shall be made by the Governor-General of India, subject to the approbation of Her Majesty; and all such appointments shall be subject to the qualifications now by law affecting such offices respectively.
1861 Indian Councils Act
passed by Parliament, the Indian Councils Act 1861 gave the Crown the power to appoint two members
passed by Parliament, the Indian Councils Act 1861 gave the Crown the power to appoint two members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Councils_Act_1861 https://ia802708.us.archive.org/11/items/indiancouncilsac00grearich/indiancouncilsac00grearich.pdf
There shall be ordinary members of the said Council of the Governor-General, three of whom shall from time to time be appointed from among such persons as shall have been, at the time of such appointment, in the service in India of the Crown, or of the Company and the Crown, for at least ten years; and if the person so appointed shall be in the military service of the Crown, he shall not, during his continuance in office as a member of Council, hold any military command, or be employed in actual military duties; and the remainmg two, one of whom shall be a barrister or a member of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland of not less than five years standing, shall be appointed from time to time by Her Majesty by warrant under Her Royal Sign Manual; and it shall be lawful for the Secretary of Stata in Council to appoint the Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty s Forces in India to be an extraordinary member of the said Council, and such extraordinary member of Council shall have rank and precedence at the Council Board next after the Governor-General.
passed by Parliament, the Indian Councils Act 1861 gave the Secretary of State (appointed by the Crown) the power to appoint three members
passed by Parliament, the Indian Councils Act 1861 gave the Secretary of State (appointed by the Crown) the power to appoint three members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Councils_Act_1861 https://ia802708.us.archive.org/11/items/indiancouncilsac00grearich/indiancouncilsac00grearich.pdf
It shall be lawful for the Secretary of State in Council, with the concurrence of a majority of members present at a meeting, and for Her Majesty, by warrant as aforesaid, respectively, to appoint any person provisionally to succeed to the office of ordinary member of the Council of the Governor-General, when the same shall become vacant by the death or resignation of the person holding the said office, or on his departure from India with intent to return to Europe, or on any event and contingency expressed in any such provisional appointment, and such appointment again to revoke; but no person so appointed to succeed provisionally to such office shall be entitled to any authority, salary, or emolument appertaining thereto until he shall be in the actual possession of such office.
passed by Parliament, the Indian Councils Act 1861 gave the Governor-General (appointed by the Crown) the power to appoint an additional six to twelve councillors
passed by Parliament, the Indian Councils Act 1861 gave the Governor-General (appointed by the Crown) the power to appoint an additional six to twelve councillors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Councils_Act_1861 https://ia802708.us.archive.org/11/items/indiancouncilsac00grearich/indiancouncilsac00grearich.pdf
For the better exercise of the power of making laws and regulations vested in the Governor-General in Council the Governor-General shall nominate, in addition to the ordinary and extraordinary members above mentioned, and to such Lieutenant-Governor in the case aforesaid, such persons, not less than six nor more than twelve in number, as to him may seem expedient, to be members of Council for the purpose of making laws and regulations only; and such persons shall not be entitled to sit or vote at any meeting of Council, except at meetings held for such purpose: Provided, that not less than one-half of the persons so nominated shall be non-official persons, that is, persons who, at the date of such nomination, shall not be in the civil or military service of the Crown in India; and that the seat in Council of any non-official member accepting office under the Crown in India shall be vacated on such acceptance.
1919 Indian Councils Act
No bill of the legislature could be deemed to have been passed unless assented to by the Viceroy. The latter could, however, enact a bill without the assent of the legislature
No bill of the legislature could be deemed to have been passed unless assented to by the Viceroy. The latter could, however, enact a bill without the assent of the legislature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_India_Act_1919 https://advocatetanmoy.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/govt-of-india-1919-act.pdf
(4) Where any Bill has been introduced or is proposed to be introduced, or any amendment to a Bill is moved or proposed to be moved, the governor may certify that the Bill or any clause of it or the amendment affects the safety or tranquillity of his province or any part of it or of another province, and may direct that no proceedings or no further proceedings shall be taken by the council in relation to the Bill, clause or amendment, and effect shall be given to any such direction.
In 1919, an Indian legislature, consisting of a Council of State and a Legislative Assembly, took over the legislative functions of the Viceroy's Council. The viceroy nonetheless retained significant power over legislation. He could authorise the expenditure of money without the Legislature's consent for "ecclesiastical, political [and] defense" purposes, and for any purpose during "emergencies." He was permitted to veto, or even stop debate on, any bill. If he recommended the passage of a bill, but only one chamber cooperated, he could declare the bill passed over the objections of the other chamber. The Legislature had no authority over foreign affairs and defence. The president of the Council of State was appointed by the viceroy; the Legislative Assembly elected its president, but the election required the viceroy's approval.
In 1919, an Indian legislature, consisting of a Council of State and a Legislative Assembly, took over the legislative functions of the Viceroy's Council. The viceroy nonetheless retained significant power over legislation. He could authorise the expenditure of money without the Legislature's consent for "ecclesiastical, political [and] defense" purposes, and for any purpose during "emergencies." He was permitted to veto, or even stop debate on, any bill. If he recommended the passage of a bill, but only one chamber cooperated, he could declare the bill passed over the objections of the other chamber. The Legislature had no authority over foreign affairs and defence. The president of the Council of State was appointed by the viceroy; the Legislative Assembly elected its president, but the election required the viceroy's approval.
feudalism was more allocatively efficient (this does not mean more productive): feudal estates were relatively efficient because they were forced to use labor-time calculations
feudalism was more allocatively efficient (this does not mean more productive): feudal estates were relatively efficient because they were forced to use labor-time calculations: https://youtu.be/8PuvPEoNK5o?t=1767 https://www.amazon.com/Production-Efficiency-Domesday-Routledge-Explorations/dp/0415161878
Maps:
early huns, gothic migration
sassanids
gothic incursions
sack of rome
spain:
north africa
overall
Timeline
350s AD: The Huns, a group of nomadic military polities, enter modern Hungary. 370s: The Huns begin subjugating Germanic polities northeast of the Danube river. 376: Two Gothic polities are resettled on the Roman side of the Danube. 395: Emperor Theodosius I dies, leaving a 17-year-old ruling the East and an 11-year-old ruling the West. Huns rampage through Armenia and Turkey. Several pretenders, most notably Stilcho, rise up in the West. 400s: The Goths resettled in 376 make increased territorial and political demands on Rome. Two Gothic polities and one Hunnic polity conquer land across the Danube. 405: The Gothic king Radagaisus invades Italy with 20,000 fighters and 100,000 people. However, """Far from offering easy pickings, imperial forces in c. AD 400 still had such a logistical, technological, and tactical superiority over so-called barbarians that the Roman Empire was an extremely dangerous place to invade. Apart from the battle of Hadrianople itself, which was clearly some kind of fluke, the pages of Ammianus are to a large extent the record of one Roman victory after another, particularly on the Rhine frontier.""" 410: The Visigoths sack both Ravenna, the Capital of the Western Roman Empire, and Rome itself. 440: A Gothic polity, the Suevi, conquers almost all of Spain. Heather on Barbarians and Breakdown
quote 1
quote 1: https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/CX/435/4/495571 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/ehr/CX.435.4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/709456552330789044/heather1995.pdf
While the western Empire did not die quickly or easily, a direct line of historical cause and effect nonetheless runs from the barbarian invasions of the late fourth and early fifth centuries to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus.
Heather can be summarized
Heather can be summarized https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/CX/435/4/495571 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/ehr/CX.435.4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/709456552330789044/heather1995.pdf
If, because of the appearance of new military forces, the Roman state was no longer capable of sustaining local elites in this fashion (and hence of constraining their loyalties either), the whole point of attachment to the Empire disappeared. As a result, they naturally tended in such circumstances to look elsewhere for props to their position, notably to whichever barbarian immigrant group was currently most powerful in their own locality.
expansion --> rome died
expansion --> rome died: https://u1lib.org/book/1102167/75a4a1
These attempted expansions directly threatened the Empire's survival. If we reduce the matter to basics, the Roman state taxed the agricultural production of its dependent territories to pay for a powerful army and a political-cum-administrative establishment.2 Any loss of territory due to permanent annexation or temporary damage in warfare thus meant loss of revenue and a weakening of the state machine.
Heather on Prior Immigration
tribal immigration was previously dealt with by Rome by breaking them up and selling them off as slaves
tribal immigration was previously dealt with by Rome by breaking them up and selling them off as slaves: https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/CX/435/4/495571 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/ehr/CX.435.4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/709456552330789044/heather1995.pdf
Immigration, even large-scale immigration, was not at all a new phe- nomenon; the Empire had a long history of resettling immigrants within its borders.2 Up to the 370s, however, this was done on Roman terms, or else resisted. In the 350s, for instance, the Emperor Julian only pre- tended to be willing to treat with some Salian Franks who had taken possession of Roman territory, to put them off their guard. He then followed up with the army and dealt with them as he pleased.3 The traditional policy towards immigrants, indeed, was thorough military and political subjugation followed by widely dispersed settlement in small groups, an approach obviously designed to minimize any security risk.4
Rome attempted to enact the same policies during the Hunnic era
Rome attempted to enact the same policies during the Hunnic era: https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/CX/435/4/495571 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/ehr/CX.435.4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/709456552330789044/heather1995.pdf
Such policies were not abandoned in the Hunnic era for want of trying. In 376, only one of the two Gothic groups which crossed the Danube unsubdued - the Tervingi - did so with Roman permission, and then only because Roman forces were tied up on the Persian front. And even those Goths allowed to cross were then subject to general harass- ment and an attempt (again following standard Roman practice) to assassinate or kidnap their leaders at a banquet given by the local Roman commander. The Empire made a full peace with both groups only in October 382 after six years of warfare, during which several Gothic subgroups had been wiped out, and, until the heavy defeat at Hadria- nople in 378, where the Emperor Valens and two-thirds of his army fell on a single afternoon, imperial policy had been directed precisely to reversing the temporary asylum granted some Goths out of necessity in 376. Even after 382, the Empire was probably still looking to undermine the Gothic autonomy which it ostensibly tolerated.5 Nor did this one enforced modification lead to a more general change in policy. As wehave seen, Odotheus received short shrift in 386, and the Roman state responded aggressively to the crisis of 405-8. Radagaisus was killed and his followers dispersed; so many were sold as slaves that the bottom fell out of the market (Orosius 7. 37. I3 ff.). No concessions were made to Uldin, and many of the Sciri who followed him were again turned into slaves or individual tenant-farmers parcelled out to Roman landowners. Likewise, when an effective response to the Rhine crossing did eventu- ally emerge, one of the two Vandal groups which, together with the Alans, crossed the Pyrenees ceased to exist as an independent unit. In subsequent years, many Suevi similarly fell by the wayside.
Ward-Perkins: External Invasion (Summarizations by Askhistorians, Unformatted)
Ward-Perkins
Ward-Perkins: https://u1lib.org/book/637663/12360a Rome fell to violent barbarian invasions. Additionally, he takes a materialist approach, focusing his analysis heavily on archaeological evidence, which he believes demonstrates that a substantive decline accompanied the collapse of the Roman state the primary engine of the classical economy. Like heather, his analysis of the fall is largely monocausal, focusing on the Germanic invaders destruction of the Roman tax base. 'the disappearance of comfort': the decline in high-quality mass-produced goods being widely available well down the social scale; the disappearance of the impressive but fragile long-range trade networks characteristic of the empire; the greatly reduced scale and more primitive style of what little public building (for example, churches) was attempted; the general replacement of strong and elegant brick or stone housing and terra cotta roof tile by cruder thatch and wood houses; even the pitifully withered robustness of the average cow (see the striking illustration on p. 145). These losses are vivid concrete evidence of the fall of Rome.
Ward-Perkins
Ward-Perkins: https://u1lib.org/book/637663/12360a Rather, there were simply too many military threats in too many places, and too many military and economic limitations, for the Romans to be able to afford a strong enough response to these threats, and not enough troops to save the west.
Ward-Perkins
Ward-Perkins: https://u1lib.org/book/637663/12360a When these conditions collapsed, standards of living declined. Tableware, luxury goods, good pottery, good tools, sturdy tiled roofs, good buildings of all sorts: all disappeared. Large churches and basilicas, everyday coinage and commercial exchange, the wide distribution of goods and foodstuffs, ease of travel and communication: all disappeared. The fall of Rome brought a sharp decline in literacy, as well as in the unity of language (Latin, as opposed to numerous Germanic dialects), in widely accessible education, in the use of written records and documents, and in the production of literature and history-writing and the whole mentality this reflects.
Ward-Perkins
Ward-Perkins: https://u1lib.org/book/637663/12360a Above all, there was in the post-Roman Latin West a rise of localism: a society composed of small, fairly isolated rural settlements that were more or less selfsufficient economically and self-sufficient in local defence, relying mainly on local potentes (armed elites and warlords with small private armies or bodyguards). The decline of sophisticated, centralized government, and the rise of localism, meant that basic needs and the demands for survival left most people no free time for education, art, literature, and architecture.
Ward-Perkins
Ward-Perkins: https://u1lib.org/book/637663/12360a And as Ward-Perkins shows, with the collapse of centralized and unified Roman political authority and of a complex economy and system of trade, the civilization of the west also collapsed.
Goldsworthy: Internal Weaknesses
summarization by askhistorians, unformatted
summarization by askhistorians, unformatted: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3s8avg/fall_of_the_roman_empire/ This led to a devastating vicious cycle: The empire is under threat. A local commander takes action, but then makes a bid for power and starts a civil war. This reduces the strength of the frontier. This encourages Rome's enemies to mount raids and invasions. This forces local commanders to take action, which then causes a new round of civil wars. This process led to the crisis of the third century, wherein 30 emperors ruled in a period of 50 years. The Danubian soldier-emperors of the late 3rd/early 4th centuries restored order, though, and under emperors such as Diocletian and Constantine a new series of reforms took place. Armies too were centralised: the emperors now started to keep large field armies with them at all times, so they could respond to threats, but more importantly so they would be safeguarded from usurpation by their commanders. This system worked, but it came at a price. This reduced the risk of civil war, but increased the tax burden on the empire and weakened border defences Goldsworthy describes a process in which imperial authority always tried to draw support from "safe" social classes. Augustus relied on the Ordo Equester, the second-tier Roman nobility often translated as "knights", because senators would be too likely to see themselves as his equals and usurp authority. However, by Diocletian's time, it had become common practice for men of relatively low birth to become emperors. The class was no longer safe. The habit of using German military strongmen started. As outsiders, often reviled by Roman elites, such men could not realistically hope to achieve imperial titles for themselves. However, that did not last long. In the 5th century, these military leaders started using a succession of weak emperors in the east and west as puppets. It was the German military leaders who had the real power, and used it against eachother in new series of civil wars, even though ostensibly the same Roman emperor might sit on the throne for long periods of time. So again, short-term stability soon devolved into new internal weakness. It was these weaknesses which then enabled the Germanic invaders of the 4th and 5th centuries to replace the central Roman authority. As Goldsworthy puts it:
[The Roman Empire] may well have been "murdered" by barbarian invaders, but these struck at a body made vulnerable by long decay.
4: Unstable Leadership: 27 BC to 395 AD
from 27 BC (beginning of Augustus) to 395 AD (West-East split), the average roman emperor ruled for only 8 years
from 27 BC (beginning of Augustus) to 395 AD (West-East split), the average roman emperor ruled for only 8 years: http://www.randalolson.com/2014/10/29/the-reigns-and-deaths-of-the-roman-emperors/
Well over half of the Emperors met some form of premature and violent end, with the average reign lasting only 8 years throughout the history of the Empire. Most of these violent ends are attributable to a particularly unstable period of the Empire known as the Crisis of the Third Century, where over 20 men (Maximinus I -> Carinus) mostly prominent Generals of the army ascended to the throne in a mere 50-year period.
from 14 AD (end of Augustus) to 395 AD (West-East split), of the 71 Roman emperors, 26 (36.6%) perished via assassination or execution, 20 (28.2%) via natural causes, 10 (14.1%) via battle or captivity, 8 (11.3%) via possible assassination, 5 (7.0%) via suicide, 1 (1.4%) via unknown causes
from 14 AD (end of Augustus) to 395 AD (West-East split), of the 71 Roman emperors, 26 (36.6%) perished via assassination or execution, 20 (28.2%) via natural causes, 10 (14.1%) via battle or captivity, 8 (11.3%) via possible assassination, 5 (7.0%) via suicide, 1 (1.4%) via unknown causes: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/2kgnuc/oc_causes_of_death_of_roman_emperors_from_14_ad/
^ excluding the 3rd Century Crisis emperors (Severus Alexander to Carinus): of the 48 emperors from 27 BC to 395 AD, 17 perished via natural causes or illness, 15 via assassination or execution, 4 via battle, 4 via suicide, and 4 via possible assasination
^ excluding the 3rd Century Crisis emperors (Severus Alexander to Carinus): of the 48 emperors from 27 BC to 395 AD, 17 perished via natural causes or illness, 15 via assassination or execution, 4 via battle, 4 via suicide, and 4 via possible assasination: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/2kgnuc/oc_causes_of_death_of_roman_emperors_from_14_ad/
table(c("p", "p", "a", "p", "s", "a", "s", "a", "n", "n", "a", "n", "n", "n", "n", "n", "a", "a", "e", "n", "a", "a", "e", "a", "n", "s", "n", "n", "a", "n", "b", "s", "e", "b", "n", "a", "n", "b", "n", "n", "b", "a", "p", "n"))
4: Unstable Leadership: 27 BC to 476 AD
from 27 BC (beginning of Augustus) to 476 AD (West-East split), ~46% of emperors perished via assassination or execution, ~38.5% via natural causes, ~6.5% via suicide, ~3.5% via murder, ~4% via external war
from 27 BC (beginning of Augustus) to 476 AD (West-East split), ~46% of emperors perished via assassination or execution, ~38.5% via natural causes, ~6.5% via suicide, ~3.5% via murder, ~4% via external war: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cplx.21839 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/cplx.21839
from 27 BC (beginning of Augustus) to 476 AD (West-East split), the mean reign of an emperor was 8.5 years and median was 5 years
from 27 BC (beginning of Augustus) to 476 AD (West-East split), the mean reign of an emperor was 8.5 years and median was 5 years: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cplx.21839 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/cplx.21839
4: Unstable Leadership: Comparisons
of the 39 British monarchs since the Norman invasion, the median rule was 22.5 years; 27.5 (70.5%) perished via illness, 6 (15.4%) via murder or execution, 2.5 (6.4%) via accident, 2 (5.1%) via battle, 1 (2.6%) via execution
of the 39 British monarchs since the Norman invasion, the median rule was 22.5 years; 27.5 (70.5%) perished via illness, 6 (15.4%) via murder or execution, 2.5 (6.4%) via accident, 2 (5.1%) via battle, 1 (2.6%) via execution: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/2iz36y/the_age_of_each_king_and_queen_of_britain_since/ https://imgur.com/a/VmV6i
mean(c(21,13,35,5,33,10,17,56,35,20,50,22,45,9,40,9,1,2,24,38,6,5,45,22,24,25,3,13,12,13,33,60,10,7,64,9,26,1,16))
of the 44 US presidents, 4 (9.1%) perished via gunshot
of the 44 US presidents, 4 (9.1%) perished via assassination
Other: Literacies
AskHistorians regular & Roman history expert Astrogator: Roman literacy was probably less than 20%
AskHistorians regular & Roman history expert Astrogator: Roman literacy was probably less than 20%: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3huswa/how_literate_was_the_average_roman_citizen_did/ https://archive.ph/wip/h8Sd5
In conclusion: Probably less than 20% were literate at a level that we would today recognize as 'literate', however, a much larger percentage of the population was able to produce and read or write texts at lower levels of competency (like Brian from Judaea). This would differ a lot from area to area, and close inspections on the available material haven't been done for many places, where they were done they have sometimes lead to higher estimates than expected. It's an interesting question, and a subject of constant inquiry. Text was very important and ubiquitous in the Roman world, and some levels of basic understanding must have been there for most people.
Other: Lead Consumptions
Cillers and Retief 2019: in ancient Rome, lead consumption appeared to *increased* with economic status
Cillers and Retief 2019: in ancient Rome, lead consumption appeared to *increased* with economic status: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128153390000147 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/B978-0-12-815339-0.00014-7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982515957471784980/cillers2019.pdf
Contamination of food, wine, and olive oil due to preparation in pewter or lead containers, and addition of sugar lead (sapa) were important causes of lead poisoning. It has been calculated that 50-60% of a free adult Roman s lead intake probably came from wine. The nobility and the rich, who drank up to 2 L wine per day, would thus have been predisposed to lead poisoning. Pewter ware was extensively used by the middle class. It is calculated that the Roman aristocrat probably took in 250 mg of lead per day, the plebeian 35 mg, and the slave 15 mg. This compares with 30-50 mg of lead per day for the average contemporary adult in the United States. WHO considers 45 mg per day as the maximal lead intake for a healthy individual (Nriagu, 1983; Needleman and Needleman, 1985).
Ethiopia
Somalia
Examples of African Science and Technology
Lebombo bone (speculative)
Ishango bone (speculative)
Namoratunga II (speculative)
Metallurgy (contemporaneous with the MidEast)
Sankore University (1100-1500 CE)
Medicine knowledge (CUT THIS XXX)
Independent domestication of the donkey
Independent domestication of cotton
Independent domestication of coffee
Ox-drawn plows
Terraced hillside cultivation
Diking and transplanting rice
Irrigation (diking, damming, leveling)
Irrigation (diking, damming, leveling): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engaruka
Examples of African Buildings
Largest manmade structure
Defensive structure
Capital city
architecture
African Non-Adoption of the Wheel
the "Africans dumb" explanation is circular and absurd
the "Africans dumb" explanation is circular and absurd: https://web.archive.org/web/20140106032919/http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jrobinson/files/the_wheel_in_africa_february_2012.pdf The conventional notion that Africans failed to employ the wheel because of lack of initiative or intelligence is intellectually unsatisfactory, not so much because it is racialist as because it is circular: Africans are supposed to have ignored the wheel because they were unenterprising, and the evidence that they were unenterprising is that they failed to adopt the wheel. In other contexts, notably in their widespread adoption of the use of imported European firearms, Africans proved eagerly receptive to innovation, and it cannot therefore be argued that they were in general conservative in their responses to new technology. There must, logically, be some special explanation for their lack of interest in the practical application of the technology of wheeled transport.
African civilizations were trapped in a vicious circle (a classic example of the "low-income trap")
African civilizations were trapped in a vicious circle (a classic example of the "low-income trap"): https://www.jstor.org/stable/1159117 But it was nonsensical to advocate the introduction of wheeled transport in order to stimulate road improvement: heavy expenditure on road improvement would only be attractive if wheeled transport promised commensurate savings, and the experience of 1841 might equally reasonably have prompted the discouraging conclusion that the costs involved were so great as to be prohibitive. The costs of road improvement, moreover, would have to be incurred in advance of any savings to be derived from the use of wheeled vehicles, and thus represented a very speculative venture as long as wheeled vehicles were not already in general use. Even the British colonial government in the Gold Coast baulked at the gamble in 1870, concluding that roads suitable for wheeled traffic would be too expensive to build and were in any case undesirable since 'even if good roads were built, there would be no vehicles to travel on them' (Dickson 1971:218-219). **Thus, wheeled transport could not be adopted without improved roads, but the roads would not be improved as long as there was no wheeled transport to use them. Only governments committed to a more aggressive ideology of economic progress, and therefore ready to incur speculative expenses in the confidence of ultimate economic advantage, could break out of this vicious circle; and such governments arrived in West Africa only with the European imperialism of the late nineteenth century.**
^ wheels, paricularly railroads, were ultimately very economically beneficial
Warburton 2000: the ancient Egyptian economy was a mixture of private markets and public construction projects
^ Warburton 1997: the ancient Egyptian economy was a mixture of private markets and public construction projects
Summary
wikipedia summary
McEwan 2006
McEwan 2006: https://u1lib.org/book/637337/c151ce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/895350405935038484/mcewan2006.pdf
The most unusual aspect of the Inca economy was the lack of a market system and money. With only a few exceptions found in coastal polities incorporated into the empire, there was no trading class in Inca society, and the development of individual wealth acquired through commerce was not possible. Local political units were ideally to be as self-sufficient as possible in producing their own basic economic requirements. A few products deemed essential by the Incas could not be produced locally and had to be imported. In these cases several strategies were employed, such as establishing colonies in specific production zones for particular commodities and permitting limited long-distance trade. The production, distribution, and use of commodities were centrally controlled by the Inca government. Each citizen of the empire was issued the necessities of life out of the state storehouses, including food, tools, raw materials, and clothing, and needed to purchase nothing. With no shops or markets, there was no need for a standard currency or money, and there was nowhere to spend money or purchase or trade for necessities.
Harris 2007 (undegrad journal): lists some sources and has some quotations
Harris 2007 (undegrad journal): lists some sources and has some quotations: https://www.eiu.edu/historia/Harris.pdf
BP = before present
Upper Paleolithic = about 50-20k BP; before the Mesolithic
Upper Paleolithic = about 50-20k BP; before the Mesolithic
Mesolithic or Epipaleolithic = about 20k-8k BP in Near East, 15k-5k BP in Europe; final period of hunter-gathers before Neolithic Revolution and agriculture
Mesolithic or Epipaleolithic = about 20k-8k BP in Near East, 15k-5k BP in Europe; final period of hunter-gathers before Neolithic Revolution and agriculture
Neolithic Revolution = rapid transition of many humans in Near East to agriculture
Neolithic Revolution = rapid transition of many humans in Near East to agriculture
Near East = Southwest Asia ("Mesopotamia", Southeast Turkey, Israel, Iraq)
Near East = Southwest Asia ("Mesopotamia", Southeast Turkey, Israel, Iraq)
Murder: Long Decline
murders USA 1900 to 2010: centry-long fluctuation from 8/100,000 around 1900's to 5/100,000 around 1940's to 8/100,000 around 1970's to 5/100,000 around 2000's
murders USA 1900 to 2010: centry-long fluctuation from 8/100,000 around 1900's to 5/100,000 around 1940's to 8/100,000 around 1970's to 5/100,000 around 2000's: http://thepublicintellectual.org/2011/05/02/a-crime-puzzle/
murders USA 1900 to 2010 compared to England
murders Europe 1200 to 2000: six-century-long decline in homicide rate from 50/100,000 to 1/100,000
murders Europe 1200 to 2000: six-century-long decline in homicide rate
Murder: Long Decline: Shitty Graph, Scrape for Sources
murders USA 1750 to 2010: three-century-long decline in homicide rate from 30/100,000 around 1750's to 5/100,000 around 2000's
murders USA 1750 to 2010: three-century-long decline in homicide rate from 30/100,000 around 1750's to 5/100,000 around 2000's: http://thepublicintellectual.org/2011/05/02/a-crime-puzzle/
Murder: State vs Nonstate
nonstate polities had massively higher violent death rates
nonstate polities had massively higher violent death rates
^ critique of the above studies
^ critique of the above studies: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/52/E11101.abstract unformatted, unread
Murder: Comparison With Other Hominids
Gomez 2016: the rate of lethal violence among prehistoric tribes (~2%) is similar to the rate of lethal violence observed among our closest genetic ancestors
Violence: Long Decline
violent crime USA 1960 to 2010: half-century-long fluctuation from 200/100,000 around 1960's to 600/100,000 around 1980's to 400/100,000 around 2000's
violent crime USA 1960 to 2010: half-century-long fluctuation from 200/100,000 around 1960's to 600/100,000 around 1980's to 400/100,000 around 2000's: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/violence-america-what-does-it-mean
International Relations Has No Ideological Consensus
most IR scholars describe their approach to IR as 25% nonparadigmatic, 18% realist, 17% liberal, or 17% constructivist
most IR scholars describe their approach to IR as 22% only rationalist, 22% only rationalist, 29\*.41=12% mostly rationalist, 8% evenly rationalist-constructivist, 29\*.29=8% mostly constructivist, and 20% only constructivist
most IR scholars describe their approach to IR as 22% only rationalist, 22% only rationalist, 29\*.41=12% mostly rationalist, 8% evenly rationalist-constructivist, 29\*.29=8% mostly constructivist, and 20% only constructivist: https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS293/articles/jordan.pdf https://discordapp.com/channels/413059339138629632/418850379518705675/697634753997701160
most IR scholars describe their approach to IR as 23% non-positivist, 55% positivist, 21% post-positivist
Decline of War in Modern Era
civilian and military deaths due to war have been declining for 75 years
civilian and military deaths due to war have been declining for 75 years: https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace
Gender and War
in Europe from 1400 to 1900, female/women rulers/monarchs/queens were more likely to wage external wars than were men/male rulers
Motivations for War
just 7% of wars were primarily religious
just 7% of wars were primarily religious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war [unformatted unread]
Economic Equality
ancient agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies were very equal; an estimate based on housing size for their Gini coefficient was .35, compared to .8 in the US and .7 in China; the shift from hunting-gathering to horticulture to agriculture and the shift towards more-stratified political systems saw a significant increase in inequality
ancient agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies were very equal; an estimate based on housing size for their Gini coefficient was .35, compared to .8 in the US and .7 in China; the shift from hunting-gathering to horticulture to agriculture and the shift towards more-stratified political systems saw a significant increase in inequality: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24646
ancient societies were very equal (gini coefficient .1 to .4) until they became limited by land instead of by labor (ie, after there were enough people to work all available land)
Stutz 2015: hunter-gatherers in the Upper Paleolithic Near East produced specialized tools, probably indicating division of labor between producers and users of flint products (eg, hunters)
Stutz 2015: hunter-gatherers in the Upper Paleolithic Near East produced specialized tools, probably indicating division of labor between producers and users of flint products (eg, hunters): http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2015/06/stone-tools-from-jordan-point-to-dawn.html https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248415001050 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.04.008 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863930642790088734/stutz2015.pdf
The group of toolmakers at Mughr el-Hamamah, however, used different technologies to get different tools. They were investing in the kinds of activities that require maintaining relationships and group planning, Stutz says. They were gearing up for a clearly defined division of labor, including firewood gathering, plant gathering, hunting and food foraging. They produced large quantities of blades for knives, and for hafting onto spears, using a prismatic blade technique that yields long, narrow points that are nearly identical. This standardization minimizes waste of the rock while maximizing the end product, Stutz says. It s the conceptual forerunner to assembly-line production.
Gender Equality
Villotte 2010: evidence from activity-related bone injuries suggests that hunter-gatherers in the European Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic probably segregated work by sex, with disproportionately males being spear hunters
Villotte 2010: evidence from activity-related bone injuries suggests that hunter-gatherers in the European Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic probably segregated work by sex, with disproportionately males being spear hunters: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248410000138 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.02.001 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863936122064076871/villotte2010.pdf
Concerning the locations of the lesions, the predominance of the right side is observed in both sexes. These findings indicate that, even in case of a sexual division of labor during the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic, the global amounts of physical stress generated by the sex-specific tasks of males and females were not markedly different. At the same time, one attachment site is commonly affected in males (23.5%) but not in females, that being the origin of the common flexor tendon on the right medial epicondyle.
It thus seems likely that the four lesions of the medial epicondyle observed in male individuals of the terminal Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic reflect the habitual use of throwingbased technology. In at least two of these cases, this practice would have started before adulthood. The location of the lesions on the medial epicondyle is consistent with spear throwing by hand, based on injuries reported in the sports literature.
Kuhn 2006
Kuhn 2006: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/507197 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/507197 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863946898410438677/kuhn2006.pdf
The rich archaeological record of Middle Paleolithic cultures in Eurasia suggests that earlier hominins pursued more narrowly focused economies, with women s activities more closely aligned with those of men with respect to schedule and ranging patterns than in recent forager systems. More broadly based economies emerged first in the early Upper Paleolithic in the eastern Mediterranean region and later in the rest of Eurasia. The behavioral changes associated with the Upper Paleolithic record signal a wider range of economic and technological roles in forager societies, and these changes may have provided the expanding populations of Homo sapiens with a demographic advantage over other hominins in Eurasia.
Data on Height, Lifespan, and Urbanicity in Greece and Turkey
Hermanussen 2003: the average height of skeletons in Greece and Turkey declined by about 10 cm after the Palaeolithic period while population density increased by about 10x
^ Angel 1984: source for above table
^ Angel 1984: source for above table: https://books.google.com/books/about/Paleopathology_at_the_Origins_of_Agricul.html?id=4cilNAEACAAJ https://u1lib.org/book/1216183/7d369d
First, there was a fairly sharp decline in growth and nutrition during the confusions and experiments of the transformation from hunting to farming, with its many inventions and increasing trade and disease between about 10,000 and 5000 B.C. Partial recoveries and advances in health occurred during the Bronze Age rise of civilization; then real advance (e.g., a 7-11-year increase in longevity) occurred with the rise of Hellenic-Roman culture.
^ Angel 1984: skeletons in Greece and Turkey suggest that male and female height declined after the shift to agriculture, male lifespan was unchanged until ~4000 YBP, female lifespan dropped by 1 year until ~4000 YBP, and urbanicity increased enormously (by about 2500x)
^ Angel 1984: skeletons in Greece and Turkey suggest that male and female height declined after the shift to agriculture, male lifespan was unchanged until ~4000 YBP, female lifespan dropped by 1 year until ~4000 YBP, and urbanicity increased enormously (by about 2500x): https://books.google.com/books/about/Paleopathology_at_the_Origins_of_Agricul.html?id=4cilNAEACAAJ https://u1lib.org/book/1216183/7d369d
TODO
TODO https://jasoncollins.blog/2013/06/17/height-through-the-millennia/ [unformatted]
However, this decline in health was not permanent. For example, the health of Egyptians 12,000 years ago, shortly after the shift to farming from foraging, was poor. But by 4,000 years ago, height had returned to pre-agricultural levels and evidence of malnutrition in tooth enamel was lower than that of their hunter gatherer comparators. Agriculturalists adapted to their new diet and environment.
Then a funny thing happened on the way from the preagricultural Mediterranean to the giant farms of today: people, at least some of them, got healthier, presumably as we adapted to the new way of life and food became more evenly distributed. The collection of skeletons from Egypt also shows that by 4,000 years ago, height had returned to its preagricultural levels, and only 20 percent of the population had telltale signs of poor nutrition in their teeth. Those trying to make the point that agriculture is bad for our bodies generally use skeletal material from immediately after the shift to farming as evidence, but a more long-term view is starting to tell a different story. For example, Timothy Gage of the State University of New York at Albany examined long-term mortality records from around the world, along with the likeliest causes of death, and concluded that life span did not decrease, nor did many diseases increase, after agriculture. Some illnesses doubtless grew worse after humans settled down, but life has had its nasty, brutish, and short phases at many points throughout history.
TODO gage study
Human Population Largely Failed to Grow for 5000 Years Afterward (This Book Doesn't Cite a Source for This Claim)
human population rose by only 1 million (from 4 to 5 million) between 10000 BCE and 5000 BCE
human population rose by only 1 million (from 4 to 5 million) between 10000 BCE and 5000 BCE: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Against_the_Grain/AJYuDwAAQBAJ https://u1lib.org/book/3401043/600996
The world's population in 10,000 BCE, according to one careful estimate, was roughly 4 million. A full five thousand years later, in 5,000 BCE, it had risen only to 5 million. This hardly represents a population explosion, despite the civilizational achievements of the Neolithic revolution: sedentism and agriculture. Over the subsequent five thousand years, by contrast, world population would grow twentyfold, to more than 100 million. The five thousand-year Neolithic transition was thus something of a demographic bottleneck, reflecting a nearly static level of reproduction. Supposing even a population growth rate just barely over replacement levels (for example, 0.015 percent) the total population would have still more than doubled over these five millennia. One likely explanation for this paradox of apparent human progress in subsistence techniques together with long period of demographic stagnation is that, epidemiologically, this was perhaps the most lethal period in human history. In the case of Mesopotamia, the claim is that, owing precisely to the effects of the Neolithic revolution, it had become the focal point of chronic and acute infectious diseases that devastated the population again and again.
Life Expectancy
TODO
TODO https://jasoncollins.blog/2013/10/21/life-expectancy-and-the-dawn-of-agriculture/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1012650 [unformatted]
This story plays out in a 2007 working paper by Oded Galor and Omer Moav on how the shift to agriculture could have affected life expectancy, and more importantly, still affects life expectancy today. They make a fairly simple argument. When people shifted to agriculture and faced a greater threat of disease and other hazards associated with dense living, those who were predisposed to make larger investments in health (toward, say, higher investment in immune function or, as they model in their paper, resource transfers to children) would have an evolutionary advantage and increase in prevalence. When those threats to the environment later ease, as has now happened in most advanced economies, that higher investment in health translates into higher life expectancy.
galor and moav study
TODO paleofantasy book
Graber 2011: credit and debt preceded money
Graber 2011: credit and debt preceded money: https://u1lib.org/book/5101441/346922 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/895341067392679936/graeber2011.pdf
In fact, our standard account of monetary history is precisely backwards. We did not begin with barter, discover money, and then eventually develop credit systems. It happened precisely the other way around. What we now call virtual money came first. Coins came much later, and their use spread only unevenly, never completely replacing credit systems. Barter, in turn, appears to be largely a kind of accidental byproduct of the use of coinage or paper money: historically, it has mainly been what people who are used to cash transactions do when for one reason or another they have no access to currency.
Carbon Abbrevations
1 PgC = 1 petagram of carbon
1 PgC = 1 petagram of carbon
1 GtC = 1 gigaton of carbon
1 GtC = 1 gigaton of carbon
1 PgC = 1 GtC
1 GtCO2 = 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide
1 GtCO2 = 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide
1 PgC = ~3.7 PgCO2 = ~3.7 GtCO2
1 PgC = ~3.7 PgCO2 = ~3.7 GtCO2
Representative Concentration Pathways
RCP 1.9 = CO2 emissions follow the Paris Agreement to reach net 0 by 2050, temperature rises to <1.5dC by 2100
RCP 1.9 = CO2 emissions follow the Paris Agreement to reach net 0 by 2050, temperature rises to <1.5dC by 2100
RCP 2.6 = CO2 emissions decline to 0 between 2020 to 2100, temperature rises to <2dC by 2100
RCP 2.6 = CO2 emissions decline to 0 between 2020 to 2100, temperature rises to <2dC by 2100
RCP 3.4 = CO2 ???, temperature rises to 2.4dC by 2100
RCP 3.4 = CO2 ???, temperature rises to 2.4dC by 2100
RCP 4.5 = CO2 emissions decline to 1/2 of 2050 levels by 2100, temperature rises to 2-3dC by 2100
RCP 4.5 = CO2 emissions decline to 1/2 of 2050 levels by 2100, temperature rises to 2-3dC by 2100
RCP 6 = CO2 emissions peak in 2080
RCP 6 = CO2 emissions peak in 2080
RCP 7 = CO2 emissions continue as is (status quo)
RCP 7 = CO2 emissions continue as is (status quo)
RCP 8.5 = CO2 emissions rise through 2100
RCP 8.5 = CO2 emissions rise through 2100
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways
IPCC AR6 2021
IPCC AR6 2021: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf Throughout this report, the five illustrative scenarios are referred to as SSPx-y, where SSPx refers to the Shared Socio-economic Pathway or SSP describing the socio-economic trends underlying the scenario, and y refers to the approximate level of radiative forcing (in W m 2 ) resulting from the scenario in the year 2100.
Models and Carbon Pathways
IPCC AR6 2021: remaining carbon budget and carbon emission evolutions of each plan
IPCC AR6 2021: we are rapidly elevating CO2 to levels not seen since 3 million years ago, when the world was 2.5-4 degrees hotter than 1850-1900 (about 1-3 degrees hotter than now)
IPCC AR6 2021: we are rapidly elevating CO2 to levels not seen since 3 million years ago, when the world was 2.5-4 degrees hotter than 1850-1900 (about 1-3 degrees hotter than now): https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
IPCC AR6 2021:
######c
>90%: in a 2009 survey of 3146 climate-related scientists, the vast majority (90+%) agreed that the world has warmed and that humans are a significant cause of said warming. The percentage that agree increases to as expertise increases
>90%: in a 2009 survey of 3146 climate-related scientists, the vast majority (90+%) agreed that the world has warmed and that humans are a significant cause of said warming. The percentage that agree increases to as expertise increases: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2009EO030002 An invitation to participate in the survey was sent to 10,257 Earth scientists. The database was built from Keane and Martinez [2007], which lists all geosciences faculty at reporting academic institutions, along with researchers at state geologic surveys associated with local universities, and researchers at U.S. federal research facilities[.] [....] 1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? 2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures? [....] [T]he most common areas of expertise reported were geochemistry (15.5%), geophysics (12%), and oceanography (10.5%). General geology, hydrology/hydrogeology, and paleontology each accounted for 5 7% of the total respondents. Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists, and 8.5% of the respondents indicated that more than 50% of their peer-reviewed publications in the past 5 years have been on the subject of climate change. [....] In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peerreviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered risen to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2.
those "unconvinced by the evidence" for anthropogenic global warming were just 2.5% of the top 200 climate researchers by number of publication
those "unconvinced by the evidence" for anthropogenic global warming were just 2.5% of the top 200 climate researchers by number of publication: https://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107 The UE group comprises only 2% of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers of the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups.
over 90% of scientists agree with anthropogenic global warming
97.1% of abstracts and 97.2% of researcher self-ratings accept anthropogenic global warming
97.1% of abstracts and 97.2% of researcher self-ratings accept anthropogenic global warming: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf
We compiled these CE researchers comprehensively [...] from the following lists: IPCC AR4 Working Group I Contributors [...] 2007 Bali Declaration [...] Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) 2006 statement [...] CMOS 2008 statement [...] 37 signers of open letter protesting The Great Global Warming Swindle[.] [....] We compiled UE names comprehensively from the following 12 lists: 1992 statement from the Science and Environmental Policy Project [...] 1995 Leipzig Declaration [...] 2002 letter to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien [...] 2003 letter to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin [...] 2006 letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper [...] 2007 letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon [...] 2007 TV film The Great Global Warming Swindle interviewees [...] NIPCC: 2008 Heartland Institute document Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate," ed. S. Fred Singer [...] 2008 Manhattan Declaration [...] 2009 newspaper ad by the Cato Institute challenging President Obama s stance on climate change [...] 2009 Heartland Institute document Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) [...] and 2009 letter to the American Physical Society[.]
^ Richard Tol complaint re: above study
^ response to Tol's complaint
studies with high-expertise interviewees show higher (>90%) consensus estimates
studies with high-expertise interviewees show higher (>90%) consensus estimates: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002/pdf
model accuracy
overview of various models and how they've compared to the actual data
the most accurate historical models predict the highest warming from rising CO2 (under ultralow emissions scenario, 15% chance of >2dC warming by 2100; under current trends, >3dC at 21-71%; under high emissions scenarios, >4dC at 93%)
the most accurate historical models predict the highest warming from rising CO2 (under ultralow emissions scenario, 15% chance of >2dC warming by 2100; under current trends, >3dC at 21-71%; under high emissions scenarios, >4dC at 93%): https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06122017/climate-change-warming-forecast-worst-case-best-models-ipcc-study https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24672 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/701109374285905970/brown17.pdf
In particular, we find that the observationally informed warming projection for the end of the twenty-first century for the steepest radiative forcing scenario is about 15 per cent warmer (+0.5 degrees Celsius) with a reduction of about a third in the two-standard-deviation spread ( 1.2 degrees Celsius) relative to the raw model projections reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Causes: Don't Blame the Poor
Climate Change and Income Inequality
Gore 2020: since 1990, we have consumed 60% of the carbon budget before a 33% risk of exceeding 1.5dC; the top 10% consumed 31%, the middle 40% consumed 25%, and the bottom 50% consumed 4%
Gore 2020: since 1990, we have consumed 60% of the carbon budget before a 33% risk of exceeding 1.5dC; the top 10% consumed 31%, the middle 40% consumed 25%, and the bottom 50% consumed 4%: https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/confronting-carbon-inequality https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859322576958521344/gore2021.pdf
^ Gore 2020: per capita and total emissions
Gore 2020: the richest 1% consume about 15% of emissions per year, the richest 10% consume about 50% of emissions per year, middle 40% about 45% of emissions per year, and the bottom 50% about 5% of emissions per year
Gore 2020: the richest 1% consume about 15% of emissions per year, the richest 10% consume about 50% of emissions per year, middle 40% about 45% of emissions per year, and the bottom 50% about 5% of emissions per year: https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/confronting-carbon-inequality https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/859322576958521344/gore2021.pdf
Gore 2020: those rich are disproportionately from North America and Europe
^ Gore 2020: GHG consumption of the rich is overwhelmingly related to air and land travel
Oxfam 2015: the poor are not to blame for the effects of global warming; the rich cause most ghg emissions (top 10% cause 49%, top 20% cause 68%)
Throughpaths: Companies
71% of global carbon emissions are produced by just 100 companies
Historical GHG Emissions
since 1751, 26% of cumulative emissions came from the United States and 33% from Europe
Production
by 2050, a 1.7-2.5C increase in temperature and allowing for relocation of agriculture, production would fall for soybean 18% (12 to 26), maize 11.5% (6 to 18), spring wheat 6.5% (4 to 10)
by 2050, a 1.7-2.5C increase in temperature and allowing for relocation of agriculture, production would fall for soybean 18% (12 to 26), maize 11.5% (6 to 18), spring wheat 6.5% (4 to 10): https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GB003765 https://sci-hub.se/10.1029/2009GB003765
Overall, adapting planting date and cultivar choice show a stronger impact in the case of maize and spring wheat, resulting in an average reduction in global crop yield losses by 18 and 12%, respectively, whereas it shows a lesser effect in the case of soybean with an average reduction in global crop yield losses of only 7%.
in the best-case scenario (B1), by 2080 only Chile, Thailand, Turkey, Canada, West Europe, and Australia would see food production increases -- the rest of the world's food production would decline between 10% and 0%
in the best-case scenario (B1), by 2080 only Chile, Thailand, Turkey, Canada, West Europe, and Australia would see food production increases -- the rest of the world's food production would decline between 10% and 0%: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378003000827 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Emissions_Scenarios#B1
Nutrition
increased CO2 will decrease nutrition quality of most foods between 10% and 0%
increased CO2 will decrease nutrition quality of most foods between 10% and 0%: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13179
Unliveable Heat
Mora 2017: substantial portions of the Earth are at risk of having large periods of unlivable heat (outdoors, for extended intervals, without protection)
Mora 2017: substantial portions of the Earth are at risk of having large periods of unlivable heat (outdoors, for extended intervals, without protection): https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3322 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Farrah_Powell/publication/318173438_Global_risk_of_deadly_heat/links/59d34762a6fdcc181ad908dd/Global-risk-of-deadly-heat.pdf
To quantify the global extent of current deadly climatic conditions, we applied the 95% probability SVM decision boundary between mean daily surface air temperature and relative humidity (red line in Fig. 1b, hereafter referred to as deadly threshold) to current global climate data (see Methods). Using data from a climate reanalysis (see Methods), we found that in 2000, 13.2% of the planet s land area, where ~30.6% of the world s human population resides, was exposed to 20 or more days when temperature and humidity surpassed the threshold beyond which such conditions become deadly (Fig. 2, extended results in Supplementary Fig. 4).
We found that by 2100, even under the most aggressive mitigation scenario (that is, RCP 2.6), ~26.9% ( 8.7% s.d.) of the world s land area will be exposed to temperature and humidity conditions exceeding the deadly threshold by more than 20 days per year, exposing ~47.6% ( 9.6% s.d.) of the world s human population to deadly climates (using Shared Socioeconomic Pathways projections of future human population29 relevant to each of the CMIP5 RCPs, see Methods). Scenarios with higher emissions will affect an even greater percentage of the global land area and human population. By 2100, ~34.1% ( 7.6% s.d.) and 47.1% ( 8.9% s.d.) of the global land area will be exposed to temperature and humidity conditions that exceed the deadly threshold for more than 20 days per year under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, respectively; this will expose ~53.7% ( 8.7% s.d.) and ~73.9% ( 6.6% s.d.) of the world s human population to deadly climates by the end of the century (Fig. 2, extended results in Supplementary Fig. 4).
summary of ocean acidification changes
historic variations in pH in the tropical South Pacific
historic variations in pH in the West Pacific
Overview
critique of Nordhaus type articles: they assume that most economic activity is unaffected by global warming
critique of Nordhaus type articles: they assume that correlations over space are equivalent to correlations over time
Effects: GDP Reduction: Low
climate change at current GHG production is estimated to cost about 2% of global GDP by 2060 (currently 2% of $88 trillion = 1.76 trillion)
climate change at current GHG production is estimated to cost about 2% of global GDP by 2060 (currently 2% of $88 trillion = 1.76 trillion): https://www.oecd.org/env/the-economic-consequences-of-climate-change-9789264235410-en.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/677192450728787968/costs_climate_change.pdf
The ENV-Linkages model simulations suggest that market damages from the selected set of impacts are projected to gradually increase over time and rise faster than global economic activity. If no further climate change action will be undertaken, the combined effect of the selected impacts on global annual GDP are projected to rise over time to likely levels of 1.0% to 3.3% by 2060, with a central projection of 2%. This range reflects uncertainty in the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) a measure indicating how sensitive the earth s climate reacts to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 using a likely range of 1.5 C to 4.5 C. Assuming a wider range of 1 C to 6 C in the ECS, GDP losses could amount to 0.6% to 4.4% in 2060.
Effects: GDP Reduction: High
climate change at current GHG production is estimated to cost about 10% of global GDP by 2049 and 30% by 2099
climate change at current GHG production is estimated to cost about 10% of global GDP by 2049 and 30% by 2099: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0071-9
Alternative Energy: Environmental Benefit
wind power is eco-friendly
wind power is eco-friendly: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140616093317.htm http://www.inderscience.com/offer.php?id=62496 xxx reread
Researchers have carried out an environmental lifecycle assessment of 2-megawatt wind turbines mooted for a large wind farm in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. They conclude that in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online.
Alternative Energy: Cost
accounting for lifetime costs, wind and solar are cheapest
accounting for lifetime costs, wind and solar are cheapest: https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/barriers-to-renewable-energy#.W-s1fN-YVuR https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-2017/ However, if costs over the lifespan of energy projects are taken into account, wind and utility-scale solar can be the least expensive energy generating sources, according to asset management company Lazard. As of 2017, the cost (before tax credits that would further drop the costs) of wind power was $30-60 per megawatt-hour (a measure of energy), and large-scale solar cost $43-53/MWh. For comparison: energy from the most efficient type of natural gas plants cost $42-78/MWh; coal power cost at least $60/MWh.
Alternative Energy: Full Renewable
by 2050, renewable energy (wind turbines, solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, biopower, geothermal, and hydropower) could provide 80% of US power
study discussing feasibility of 100% renewables
51% of Americans would support 100% renewable energy even if it raised their bill by 30%
nuclear and other 'firm' resources will help renewable energy goals
Deaths Per TWH
2007 study
2008 WHO study
2017 study: solar, wind, nuclear have lowest deaths per TWh
2017 study: solar, wind, nuclear have lowest deaths per TWh: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy/
Bird Deaths
Neuhauser 2014
Neuhauser 2014: https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/08/22/pecking-order-energys-toll-on-birds
Solar: Anywhere from about 1,000 birds a year, according to BrightSource, to 28,000 birds a year, according to an expert at the Center for Biological Diversity. Wind: Between 140,000 and 328,000 birds a year in the contiguous United States, according to a December 2013 study published in the journal Biological Conservation. Taller turbines tend to take out more birds. Oil and Gas: An estimated 500,000 to 1 million birds a year are killed in oil fields, the Bureau of Land Management said in a December 2012 memo. Coal: Huge numbers of birds, roughly 7.9 million, may be killed by coal, according to analysis by Benjamin K. Sovacool, director of the Danish Center for Energy Technologies. His estimate, however, included everything from mining to production and climate change, which together amounted to about five birds per gigawatt-hour of energy generated by coal. Nuclear: About 330,000 birds, by Sovacool s calculations. Power Lines: Between 12 and 64 million birds a year are felled by transmission lines, according to a study published July 3 in the journal PLOS ONE. That's plenty of birds. But there's no more effective bird killer than species' lifelong enemy: cats. All told, felines kill 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds a year. Sylvester would be proud.
Nuclear: Timescale
according to IAEA data, the average nuclear power plant was built in 7.5 years (between build start and grid connection)
according to IAEA data, the average nuclear power plant was built in 7.5 years (between build start and grid connection): https://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/
Nuclear: Cost
Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: in every country but the USA and Germany, nuclear power overnight construction costs per kWh stayed flat or declined -- suggesting that the multi-reactor sites and standardized designs of these countries were efficient
Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: in every country but the USA and Germany, nuclear power overnight construction costs per kWh stayed flat or declined -- suggesting that the multi-reactor sites and standardized designs of these countries were efficient: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300106 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.01.011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/962838916111675392/lovering2016.pdf The metric OCC includes the costs of the direct engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services that the vendors and the architect-engineer team are contracted to provide, as well as the indirect owner s costs, which include land, site preparation, project management, training, contingencies, and commissioning costs. The OCC excludes financing charges known as Interest During Construction.
^ Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: US: sharp increase, negative learning by doing
^ Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: France: slight increase, near-zero learning by doing
^ Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: Canada: slight increase, small negative learning by doing
^ Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: West Germany: sharp increase, negative learning by doing
^ Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: India: unclear trend: increse from 1960s to 1970s, decrease from 1980s to 2000s
^ Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: Japan: unclear trend: increase from 1960s to 1970s, flat from 1980s to 2000s
^ Lovering, Yip, and Nordhaus 2016: South Korea: slight decrease, small positive learning by doing
Nuclear: Cancer Risk Among Residents
Kim Bang Lee 2015: meta-study: among 13 studies on thyroid risk of people living near nuclear power plants (NPPs), the net effect was 0; however, among 2 well-designed studies that defined exposure as living less than 20km from a NPP, the odds ratio was 1.75x
Kim Bang Lee 2015: meta-study: among 13 studies on thyroid risk of people living near nuclear power plants (NPPs), the net effect was 0; however, among 2 well-designed studies that defined exposure as living less than 20km from a NPP, the odds ratio was 1.75x: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26638017/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412015300908 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.envint.2015.11.006 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999184763250290748/kim2016.pdf
Desbiolles et al 2017: large study: among French people from 1995-2011, those living within 20km of nuclear power plants (NPP) or other nuclear installations (ONI) had slightly lower leukemia rates (0.86x), slightly lower thyroid cancer rates in women (0.86x for 1 site, 0.66x for 2 sites), and slightly higher bladder cancer (1.19x for 1 site, 0.72x for 2 sites); however, this latter result was entirely driven by one nuclear waste processing site
Desbiolles et al 2017: large study: among French people from 1995-2011, those living within 20km of nuclear power plants (NPP) or other nuclear installations (ONI) had slightly lower leukemia rates (0.86x), slightly lower thyroid cancer rates in women (0.86x for 1 site, 0.66x for 2 sites), and slightly higher bladder cancer (1.19x for 1 site, 0.72x for 2 sites); however, this latter result was entirely driven by one nuclear waste processing site: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29055029/ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijc.31116 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/ijc.31116 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999184719633727599/desbiolles2017.pdf
Nuclear: Cancer Risk Among Workers
Park et al 2010: meta-study: the risk of death from cancer is *lower* among nuclear plant workers than the general public, though it's not clear why (plant workers might be more vigilant at getting tested for cancer but also have a higher risk of cancer, for example)
Park et al 2010: meta-study: the risk of death from cancer is *lower* among nuclear plant workers than the general public, though it's not clear why (plant workers might be more vigilant at getting tested for cancer but also have a higher risk of cancer, for example): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20383052/ https://www.jpmph.org/journal/view.php?id=10.3961/jpmph.2010.43.2.185 https://sci-hub.se/10.3961/jpmph.2010.43.2.185 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1003413190970974269/park2010.pdf
Nuclear: Shell Bluff
Better Georgia 2016: nuclear bad
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense Leage 2010: "an analysis of CDC data from the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League revealed a 24 percent increase in the cancer death rate in Burke County"
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense Leage 2010: "an analysis of CDC data from the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League revealed a 24 percent increase in the cancer death rate in Burke County": https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1033/ML103330070.pdf
Radiation and Public Health Project 2010: "documented a 55 percent increase in the cancer death rate for both children and adults after the reactors went online"
Radiation and Public Health Project 2010: "documented a 55 percent increase in the cancer death rate for both children and adults after the reactors went online": https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1033/ML103330070.pdf
Nuclear: Sex Link
NAS 2005
NAS 2005: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11340/health-risks-from-exposure-to-low-levels-of-ionizing-radiation https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/999320008935092245/nas2005.pdf
The risk depends on both sex and age at exposure, with higher risks for females and for those exposed at younger ages. On average, assuming a sex and age distribution similar to that of the entire U.S. population, the BEIR VII lifetime risk model predicts that approximately 1 person in 100 would be expected to develop cancer (solid cancer or leukemia) from a dose of 0.1 Sv above background, while approximately 42 of the 100 individuals would be expected to develop solid cancer or leukemia from other causes.
Olson 2019: radiation disproportionately affects women and children: [note: author is a crank]
Olson 2019: radiation disproportionately affects women and children: [note: author is a crank] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03080188.2019.1603864
Abatement: Cost
climate change abatement that would cost just 0.4% of global GDP (less than USD350bn of about USD87trn) could reduce yearly gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions (GtCO2e) from 70 to 38 (54%) by 2030
climate change abatement that would cost just 0.4% of global GDP (less than USD350bn of about USD87trn) could reduce yearly gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions (GtCO2e) from 70 to 38 (54%) by 2030: https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-will-it-cost-to-mitigate-climate-change https://www.cbd.int/financial/doc/Pathwaystoalowcarboneconomy.pdf
Counterstudies: Drought
using climate models (which the above author recommends), global warming is a significant cause of the increase in droughts
using climate models (which the above author recommends), global warming is a significant cause of the increase in droughts: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/adai/papers/Dai-NatureClimChange-final.pdf
Oxygen Concentration Decline Is Small
oxygen concentration have fallen by about 0.1% over the last ~200 years
oxygen concentration have fallen by about 0.1% over the last ~200 years: https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/29395/20160929/decline-earths-oxygen-caused-fossil-fuels-experts-suggest.htm https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6306/1427
The study, published in the journal Science, revealed that the oxygen concentration in the Earth's atmosphere have decreased by 0.7 percent in the last 800,000 years. The decline is not that significant to be worried over. However, scientists are concerned because that the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere has rapidly dropped by 0.1 percent in the last century.
A decrease in O2/N2 of 1 per mil ( ) equates to a 0.1% decrease in PO2 relative to the preanthropogenic atmosphere (i.e., the modern atmosphere corrected for fossil fuel combustion).
no, the Amazon is not the "lungs of the Earth"
no, the Amazon is not the "lungs of the Earth": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/destructive-amazon-fires-do-not-threaten-earths-oxygen-expert-says/
Only a tiny fraction perhaps 0.0001% of global photosynthesis is diverted by burial in this way, and thus adds to atmospheric oxygen. But over millions of years, the residual oxygen left by this tiny imbalance between growth and decomposition has accumulated to form the reservoir of breathable oxygen on which all animal life depends. It has hovered around 21% of the volume of the atmosphere for millions of years.
plots over last 40 years
another study estimating O2 concentrations over time
Human Survivability and Oxygen
with evolution, humans appear able to survive with oxygen pressure as low as half of that today
with evolution, humans appear able to survive with oxygen pressure as low as half of that today: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5138252/
The highest permanent settlement on record is the (now abandoned) Chilean mining village of Quilcha (5340 m), which was discovered by the 1935 International High Altitude Expedition to Chile [39]. It has been argued that this represents the upper limit of long-term human habitation, because the residents chose to sleep at this elevation and make a daily ascent to the mine above. PatO2 at the Quilcha settlement is 11.3 kPa (slightly higher than 50% of the current PatO2 at sea level). The parabolic deoxygenation model described here predicts that PatO2 at sea level will reach this threshold in ~3600 years from now. During this time, the human species is likely to undergo further positive selection for physiological phenotypes conveying survival advantage in hypoxic conditions. Studies of high-altitude residents tell us that while such adaptations may enable us to function relatively well in an atmosphere that contains just over half the oxygen we breathe today; many will suffer the long-term consequences.
Phytoplankton Decline
study discussing global decline of phytoplankton
study discussing global decline of phytoplankton
study discussing global decline of phytoplankton
Rosseaux 2015: most of the decline in phytoplankton is regional
Rosseaux 2015: most of the decline in phytoplankton is regional: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015GB005139 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/2015GB005139 The global decline in diatoms was mostly attributed to their decline in the North Pacific ( 1.00% yr 1, p < 0.05), where the MLD shallowed significantly and resulted in a decline in all three nutrients (p < 0.05). None of the other phytoplankton groups exhibited a significant change globally, but regionally there were considerable significant trends. A decline in nutrients in the northernmost latitudes coincided with a significant decline in diatoms (North Pacific, 1.00% yr 1) and chlorophytes (North Atlantic, 9.70% yr 1).
Phytoplankton Adaptation
one species of phytoplankton rose from 2 to 20% abundance from 1965 to 2010 in the North Atlantic Ocean
one species of phytoplankton rose from 2 to 20% abundance from 1965 to 2010 in the North Atlantic Ocean: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6267/1533.abstract http://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.aaa8026
`The CPR data shows an increase in occurrence of coccolithophores across the North Atlantic from ~1% of samples in the 1960s to over 20% of samples with coccolithophores in the 2000s (Fig. 1, A to F, and fig. S2)
We hypothesize that synergistic effects due to CO2, AMO [Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation], and global warming differentially accelerated coccolithophore growth rates, driving recent increases in their occurrence. Compared to other phytoplankton groups, coccolithophore photosynthesis is severely carbon-limited (2) and sedimentary records show a predominance of coccolithophores during interglacial (22) and high CO2 periods (23).
within 100 generations, a model phytoplankton adapted to the point of equal growth rates in a shift of 20dC to 33dC
within 100 generations, a model phytoplankton adapted to the point of equal growth rates in a shift of 20dC to 33dC: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.12545 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/ele.12545
In our experiment, growth rates increased exponentially between 20 and 30 C after 10 generations, though at 33 C, the capacity for physiological acclimation to facilitate further increases in growth was insufficient. In line with our expectations, CUE [Carbon-Use Efficiency] declined with increasing selection temperature, and at 33 C growth was presumably limited by low CUE. Evolutionary responses in phytoplankton, either via selection on pre-existing genotype variation (Lohbeck et al. 2012) or de novo mutations, are frequently observed within 100 generations (Schaum & Collins 2014; Schluter et al. 2014), and in our experiment, after 100 generations, growth at 33 C had increased to levels predicted from the exponential relationship between temperature and growth. Consistent with our hypothesis, elevated thermal tolerance evolved via increases in CUE mediated by greater down-regulation of specific rates of respiration, R(Tc) relative to those of photosynthesis, P(Tc). These findings provide direct evidence that selection on metabolic traits provides a mechanistic explanation for the evolution of elevated thermal tolerance in a model phytoplankton.
The first was published in the journal Science, and looked at data from the past 50 years. The paper's authors found one particular species of phytoplankton from the North Atlantic has thrived. In fact, its population has increased almost tenfold since 1965. That's an incredibly surprising finding for the researchers. It has long been thought that organisms like these would be particularly sensitive to the increase in acidity that is measured in the oceans today.
The first was published in the journal Science, and looked at data from the past 50 years. The paper's authors found one particular species of phytoplankton from the North Atlantic has thrived. In fact, its population has increased almost tenfold since 1965. That's an incredibly surprising finding for the researchers. It has long been thought that organisms like these would be particularly sensitive to the increase in acidity that is measured in the oceans today. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eva.12120 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/eva.12120
In another study also published this week, researchers like Daniel Padfield from the University of Exeter explored temperature adaptations of plankton. And he says they adapted quickly. "At 33 degrees centigrade, which is the highest temperature where they were stressed out, they initially grew below what we would expect," he said. "However, after just 45 days, they evolved increased growth rates. So essentially, they increased their thermal tolerance, so the range of temperatures in which they're capable of surviving, after only 45 days."
In another study also published this week, researchers like Daniel Padfield from the University of Exeter explored temperature adaptations of plankton. And he says they adapted quickly. "At 33 degrees centigrade, which is the highest temperature where they were stressed out, they initially grew below what we would expect," he said. "However, after just 45 days, they evolved increased growth rates. So essentially, they increased their thermal tolerance, so the range of temperatures in which they're capable of surviving, after only 45 days." https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1441 http://sci-hub.se/10.1038/ngeo1441
Only up to a point. In a third study published this week, in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, researchers from the University of Leicester predicted that a six-degree rise in ocean temperature will prevent phytoplankton from surviving. That would mean the loss of the oxygen they produce through photosynthesis.
Only up to a point. In a third study published this week, in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, researchers from the University of Leicester predicted that a six-degree rise in ocean temperature will prevent phytoplankton from surviving. That would mean the loss of the oxygen they produce through photosynthesis.: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-015-0126-0 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11538-015-0126-0
Low Willingness to Pay
AP-NORC 2018: about 60% of Americans say they are willing to pay $1/month ($12/yr) to combat climate change, 30% to pay $20/mo ($240/yr), and 20% to pay $100 ($1200/yr)
net-zero by 2055 would yield a high likelihood of 1.5 degrees Celsius
net-zero by 2050 requires negative CO2 emissions after 2050; however, non-CO2 forcing would not reach zero by 2100
many / most of the impacts highlighted by the IPCC begin to get substantially worse in the 1.5dC-2dC range
Carbon Budgets: Literature Review
Rogelj 2019: under the IPCC's estimates, the world's carbon budget for 1.5 degrees Celsius warming is 500 PgC and for 2 degrees is 1500 PgC; yearly emission is about 35 PgC; however, more conservative estimates (including eg permafrost thawing) put the 1.5 budget at 50 pcG and the 2 budget at 900 PgC
Rogelj 2019: under the IPCC's estimates, the world's carbon budget for 1.5 degrees Celsius warming is 500 PgC and for 2 degrees is 1500 PgC; yearly emission is about 35 PgC; however, more conservative estimates (including eg permafrost thawing) put the 1.5 budget at 50 pcG and the 2 budget at 900 PgC: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1368-z http://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41586-019-1368-z https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/778788991038128148/rogelj2019.pdf
Carbon Budgets: Including Non-Co2 Forcing and Permafrost Melting
including non-CO2 forcing and permafrost melting, the remaining carbon budget for 2 degrees C (2dc) warming is 810 PgC, for 2.5dC is 1055 PgC, and for 3dC is 1265 PgC (current yearly emission is about 35 PgC); if we overshoot the warming target, the budget diminishes to just 690 PgC for a 3dC budget
including non-CO2 forcing and permafrost melting, the remaining carbon budget for 2 degrees C (2dc) warming is 810 PgC, for 2.5dC is 1055 PgC, and for 3dC is 1265 PgC (current yearly emission is about 35 PgC); if we overshoot the warming target, the budget diminishes to just 690 PgC for a 3dC budget: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/125003/meta https://sci-hub.se/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/125003 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779022469109514300/macdougall2015.pdf
Most Models Agree Models No PONR
MacDougall 2019: meta-analysis of 18 Earth System Models found that there is little "warming in the pipeline" -- immediately stopping (model A) or quickly curbing (model B) greenhouse gas emissions would drastically limit future warming
MacDougall 2019: meta-analysis of 18 Earth System Models found that there is little "warming in the pipeline" -- immediately stopping (model A) or quickly curbing (model B) greenhouse gas emissions would drastically limit future warming: https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/17/2987/2020/ https://sci-hub.se/10.5194/bg-17-2987-2020 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/778666036379648020/macdougall2019.pdf ZEC = "change in global mean temperature expected to occur following the cessation of net CO2 emissions"; ESM = Earth System Model; EMIC = Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity;
Overall, the most likely value of ZEC on multi-decadal timescales is close to zero, consistent with previous model experiments and simple theory.
^ Sanderson 2020: many EMICs make assumptions that structurally limit future long-term warming, which makes it harder to trust their observations for high amounts of CO2 output (but more reasonable at lower levels)
^ Sanderson 2020: many EMICs make assumptions that structurally limit future long-term warming, which makes it harder to trust their observations for high amounts of CO2 output (but more reasonable at lower levels): https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/11/563/2020/
Randers and Goluke 2020: Study Itself
Randers and Goluke 2020 claim: "Black dotted curves show Scenario 2 where man-made GHG emissions are cut to zero in 2020. In both cases the global temperature keeps rising for hundreds of years after all man-made emissions have ceased."
Randers and Goluke 2020 claim: "Black dotted curves show Scenario 2 where man-made GHG emissions are cut to zero in 2020. In both cases the global temperature keeps rising for hundreds of years after all man-made emissions have ceased." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75481-z https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41598-020-75481-z https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/778664612559454228/randers2020.pdf
Randers and Goluke 2020: Responses
the study was made by non-experts who used bad models
the study was made by non-experts who used bad models: https://earther.gizmodo.com/climate-scientists-debunk-point-of-no-return-paper-ev-1845667916
Even before getting into the body of the study, the authors credited made me lift my eyebrows. They re not climate scientists, they re business school professors. And it shows in the report, because their model is simplistic. Climate researchers have spent decades building out models that account for the intricacies of the climate. More complex models, for instance, better illustrate the ocean s circulation patterns, which can have a large effect on warming in the long term. They also more accurately display how much water vapor is in the atmosphere, which is short-lived but common natural source of warming. The new paper s model misses a lot of this.
Modern complex Earth System Models generally show minimal future committed warming after zero emissions, even taking our best estimate of future permafrost melt into account, Hausfather said. [....] Folks are missing that its a simple model created by non-experts, he said. I m also worried that there is a bit of a bias to cover it given its purported dramatic findings.
Consensus Review
Lenton 2008: according to a survey of ~80 climate experts with specific expertise, most of the tipping points are likely to occur in the 3-6dC range
^ Lenton 2019: even these tipping points are too risky and we may already be past some tipping points
^ Lenton 2019: even these tipping points are too risky and we may already be past some tipping points: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0
We argue that the intervention time left to prevent tipping could already have shrunk towards zero, whereas the reaction time to achieve net zero emissions is 30 years at best. Hence we might already have lost control of whether tipping happens. A saving grace is that the rate at which damage accumulates from tipping and hence the risk posed could still be under our control to some extent.
Permafrost Melting
the melting of the permafrost may release between 100 PgC to 400 PgC between 2000 and 2300 (or .3 to 1.2 PgC per year), depending on the severity of global warming itself
Degrowth and Green Growth
Background: Universe of Available Beliefs
Wiedmann et al 2020: summary of meta-approaches to sustainable prosperity: radical (ecosocialism, ecoanarchism, incl degrowth), reformist (agrowth/post-growth/steady-state-economy), green growth (sustainable growth, decoupling)
Wiedmann et al 2020: summary of meta-approaches to sustainable prosperity: radical (ecosocialism, ecoanarchism, incl degrowth), reformist (agrowth/post-growth/steady-state-economy), green growth (sustainable growth, decoupling): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41467-020-16941-y https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017955305017057300/wiedman2020.pdf
Degrowth in Its Own Words: Equitable Downscaling of Energy & Resource Use, Primarily Aimed at Rich Nations
Hickel 2020: specify what degrowth means that "we want to reduce energy and material throughput", because green growth is impossible
Hickel 2020: degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession: (1) degrowth is planned, recessions are not planned; (2) degrowth prioritizes downscaling ecodestructive production and socially-less-necessary production, recessions do not; (3) degrowth aims for full employment with a job guarantee, recessions do not; (4) degrowth aims for lower inequality, recessions raise them; (5) degrowth expans universal public goods, recessions often privatize them; (6) degrowth prioritizes renewable energy and ecoprotection policies, recessions often cut these priorities
Hickel 2020: degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession: (1) degrowth is planned, recessions are not planned; (2) degrowth prioritizes downscaling ecodestructive production and socially-less-necessary production, recessions do not; (3) degrowth aims for full employment with a job guarantee, recessions do not; (4) degrowth aims for lower inequality, recessions raise them; (5) degrowth expans universal public goods, recessions often privatize them; (6) degrowth prioritizes renewable energy and ecoprotection policies, recessions often cut these priorities: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2020.1812222 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/14747731.2020.1812222 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017906599957901392/hickel2020.pdf
Hickel 2020: degrowth is primarily focused on high-income nations, which would enable Global Southern countries to pursue non-raw-resource-extraction economies and developmentalist industrial policy
Degrowth Policies
Rigon 2017: set of degrowth policy proposals from the degrowth community in Budapest
Rigon 2017: set of degrowth policy proposals from the degrowth community in Budapest: https://degrowth.info/blog/degrowth-politics-and-policies-for-degrowth
Making banks liable for the environmental impact of their credits; Shifting taxation from labour to material consumption; Cutting taxation on labour-intensive services with low energy throughput and consumption of nature; Taxing pollution, energy and nature embedded in products; Linking international trade agreements to frameworks on climate change and consumption of nature.; Reducing working hours.; Implementing an inheritance cap; Implementing bank holiday if the weather is good; Implementing ecological footprint product & service labelling; Implementing reparability scoring; Removing VAT from repairs; Changing social norms and the imaginary of a well-being; Changing social norms on consumption; Reducing advertisement; Implementing measures and policies to change small daily behaviours; Incentivising clean air and new urban mobility; Regulating the reduction of packaging; Increasing taxes on flights; Investing in non-commercial public spaces.
Descriptive Claims: Ecocosts of Carbon Capture
Heck et al 2018: bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) would require the land of up to 3x the size of India as the necessary scale, which would bring the Earth closer to the current expected planetary boundary (PB) for water use, land use, deforestation
Heck et al 2018: bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) would require the land of up to 3x the size of India as the necessary scale, which would bring the Earth closer to the current expected planetary boundary (PB) for water use, land use, deforestation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0064-y https://sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41558-017-0064-y https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017970030849314816/heck2018.pdf
Descriptive Claims: Material Footprint: Scope
Wiedmann et al 2020: the global material footprint of the world has roughly doubled since 1990
ocean plastic pollution is estimated to cost $.5 to 2.5 trillion per year
ocean plastic pollution is estimated to cost $.5 to 2.5 trillion per year: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X19302061 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.03.022
This 1 5% decline in marine ecosystem service delivery equates to an annual loss of $500 $2500 billion in the value of benefits derived from marine ecosystem services. With the 2011 stock of plastic in the marine environment having been estimated between 75 and 150 million tonnes (Jang et al., 2015; McKinsey, 2015), this would equate in 2011, under 2011 levels of marine plastic pollution and based on 2011 ecosystem services values to each tonne of plastic in the ocean having an annual cost in terms of reduced marine natural capital of between $3300 and $33,000.
world bee population has increased 65% since 1960
pesticides and parasites have reduces bee population growth; however, the major causes of bee population decline in the West has been a shift of bee production to the east
pesticides and parasites have reduces bee population growth; however, the major causes of bee population decline in the West has been a shift of bee production to the east: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10393-013-0870-2 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10393-013-0870-2
Long-term declines in honey bee colony numbers (i.e., the steady decrease in the overall number of colonies over time) in Europe and the U.S. appear to be associated with political and socioeconomic factors. They have involved more than a 25% decrease of European colonies since the mid-1980s and nearly a 60% decrease in the U.S. (Fig. 1) (Potts et al. 2010a). The collapse of the U.S.S.R. in the 1990s reduced governmental financing of beekeeping in former Soviet countries of eastern Europe, causing a 50% reduction in managed colony numbers there (Aizen and Harder 2009). In western Europe, higher production costs, competition from cheaper imported honey, and increased affordability of sugar-based products have led to a 30% decrease in beekeepers and a 25% decrease in colony numbers since 1985 (Aizen and Harder 2009; Potts et al. 2010a). Honey demand and prices had already fallen in the U.S. at the end of WWII, making beekeeping less profitable. Declines were compounded by rapid expansion of honey importation from China, Argentina, and Vietnam during the 1960s leading to reduced demand for domestic honey (Daberkow et al. 2009; vanEngelsdorp and Meixner 2010). [....] Additionally, long-term declines in the U.S. may be artificially heightened by the counting methods used by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). A widely cited reduction by one million colonies during the 1980s (Fig. 1) coincides with NASS discontinuing the inclusion of colonies from operations with five or fewer hives (vanEngelsdorp and Meixner 2010).
Ecological Expansion
coverage over time
Ecological Causes: Fertilizer and Climate Change
Amazonian fertilizer runoff is a primary cause of Sargassum explosion
Amazonian fertilizer runoff is a primary cause of Sargassum explosion: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/83 https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.aaw7912 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/700342961426399323/wang2019.pdf
Overall, the recent bloom events show connections to nutrient enrichment and climatic variations. Higher wintertime North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) values in the bloom years correlated well with lower SSTs [sea surface temperatures] and stronger upwelling (Fig. 2) (36, 37). Evidence for nutrient enrichment is also found in the Sargassum nutrient compositions. Specifically, the N:P [nitrogen:phosphorous] ratios of the recent neritic samples show an increasingly P-limited growth compared with the historical baselines, which would be a result of long-term nutrient enrichment, especially N enrichment, in recent years (24). Other evidence to support recent nutrient enrichment in the central west Atlantic comes from increased deforestation and fertilizer use in Brazil and increased water-column nitrogen from 2010 to 2018 (fig. S4).
^ methodology explained
Djakoure 2017
Djakoure 2017: https://www.biogeosciences-discuss.net/bg-2017-346/ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1e8d/009bac0479cbd41eb5fa5727cca356cfc6ac.pdf
High anomalously unprecedented positive sea surface temperature observed in the tropical Atlantic in 2010-2011 could have induced favorable temperature conditions for Sargassum blooms. These favorable conditions were then fed by ad10 ditional continental nutrients inputs, principally from the Amazon River. These continental nutrients load are the consequences of deforestation, agroindustrial and urban activities in the Amazonian forest. The results also suggest that subsurface intake of nutrients from the equatorial upwelling could also contribute to the blooms of the Sargassum seaweed in the Atlantic Ocean but further studies are needed to confirm these additional inputs.
Ecological Cost
sargassum kills coral reefs, kills beach grasses, and snares animals
sargassum kills coral reefs, kills beach grasses, and snares animals: https://cen.acs.org/content/cen/articles/97/i34/Sargassum-strangling-tourism-Caribbean-scientists.html
Sargassum is a troublesome addition to its new environs. At sea, it blocks algae on coral reefs from absorbing and harvesting sunlight. As the seaweed decays on land, it releases chemicals such as nitrogen and phosphorus that can seep into groundwater and pollute it. Although small amounts of seaweed help stabilize beaches, the large amounts washing ashore in the Caribbean can kill seagrasses, causing beaches to erode faster. It ensnares fish and dolphins and prevents turtles from coming ashore to nest.
Economic Costs: Mexico: Cleanup
Mexico experienced $0.275 billion economic damage from sargasso in 2018; cleanup cost $0.017 billion in 2018, $.038 billion in 2019
Mexico experienced $0.275 billion economic damage from sargasso in 2018; cleanup cost $0.017 billion in 2018, $.038 billion in 2019: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/government-predicts-30-drop-in-tourism/ https://www.milenio.com/negocios/calculan-caida-30-llegada-turistas-cancun Mexico GDP 2018: $1.221 trillion --> Sargassum economic damages = 0.023% of GDP
Federal, state and municipal authorities spent 332 million pesos (US $17.2 million) between June and December last year to attend to the invasion of sargassum but this year an investment of more than 720.5 million pesos (US $37.6 million) is predicted in the Semarnat/Segob report.
The two secretariats estimated that the arrival of the smelly and unsightly seaweed caused economic damage of just under 5.3 billion pesos (US $275 million) last year. At least 522,226 tonnes of sargassum were removed from the sea and beaches in Quintana Roo, they said.
^ cleanup will use federal navy vehicles and sea barriers constructed for this purpose
sargassum beaches map
sargassum beaches map: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/huge-sargassum-arrival-blankets-beaches/
For hotel owners, the cost of keeping beaches clean has become unsustainable, according to an industry leader. Some are spending as much as 900,000 pesos (US $47,000) a month to ensure that beaches meet the expectations of tourists.
Mexico Sargassum cleanup costs $17 million in 2018
Mexico Sargassum cleanup costs $17 million in 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/28/mexico-seaweed-invasion-tourism-caribbean-beaches Mexico GDP 2018: $1.221 trillion --> Sargassum cleanup = 0.0014% of GDP
Economic Costs: Mexico: Tourism
Mexico predicts 30% drop in tourism in state affected by high sargassum washup
Mexico predicts 30% drop in tourism in state affected by high sargassum washup: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/government-predicts-30-drop-in-tourism/ https://www.milenio.com/negocios/calculan-caida-30-llegada-turistas-cancun
Tourism will fall by as much as 30% at Quintana Roo beach destinations this year due to the invasion of sargassum, according to the federal government.
In Mahahual, where large quantities of sargassum have begun washing up on the beach, 40% of hotel reservations have been canceled in recent days, according to a Quintana Roo tourism official.
sargassum likely had a negative effect on measurable tourism outcomes of sales, occupancy, and international traffic
sargassum likely had a negative effect on measurable tourism outcomes of sales, occupancy, and international traffic: https://www.theyucatantimes.com/2019/08/low-hotel-occupancy-during-the-summer-of-2019-in-quintana-roo-due-to-several-factors/
On the other hand, the Hotel Association of the Riviera Maya said in a statement that in the first half of the year they presented an occupation of 2 percentage points below that registered in 2018, which is the tonic with which the second will continue half of 2019 [sic].
Iv n Ferrat Mancera, president of the Quintana Roo Nautical Associates, said that although in recent weeks the sargassum gave way, the balance a few days after the end of the season, which will end on August 26, is that between 6 and 7 points will remain percentages below the previous year s sales. "We cannot say that it was a bad season, we reached levels of 89 or 90% occupancy, but last year we reached 95 or 96%; yes we suffer a low during this season.
"Regarding the arrival of passengers, it should be noted that the Cancun International Airport showed a 2.5% reduction in domestic passenger traffic, from 938,633 in July 2018 to 914,987 in the same month of 2019; the decline was greater in international travelers, from 1 million 531,041 to 1 million of 484,897 in the reference period (3.0 percent), according to the Southeast Airport Group.
^ unclear effects
Economic Costs: Caribbean
Caribbean Sargassum cleanup costs $120 million in 2018
Caribbean Sargassum cleanup costs $120 million in 2018: https://forimmediaterelease.net/sargassum-clean-up-costs-caribbean-us120-million-bartlett-707152/ Caribbean GDP 2018: $360 billion --> Sargassum cleanup = 0.033% of GDP (12.42 Bahamas, 101.1 `, 1.011 St. Kitts, 1.611 Antigua, 23.81 Trinidad, 5.145 Barbados, 1.186 Grenada, 1.922 St. Lucia, 100 Cuba, 85.56 Dominican Republic, 0.811 St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 15.71 Jamaica, 9.659 Haiti)
Economic Gains: Fertilizer
sargassum can be processed as fertilizer
sargassum can be processed as fertilizer: https://www.gfmag.com/magazine/june-2019/caribbean-economies Johanan Dujon, of St. Lucia, saw an opportunity outside the tourist industry. He began harvesting the seaweed and turned it into an organic fertilizer, founding Algas Organics in 2014. I started this company with a vision to convert what many people saw as an environmental and economic threat into the world s most innovative fertilizer company, he explains. Algas Organics has processed more than 3 million pounds of Sargassum since starting production in 2015, simultaneously cleaning beaches and supporting local agriculture with an organic fertilizer.
Economic Gains: Food
some kinds of seaweed can be used as food
some kinds of seaweed can be used as food: https://cen.acs.org/environment/sustainability/Netherlands-building-seaweed-industry/97/i34
Setting aside just 2% of Earth s sea surface for seaweed cultivation would ensure enough food for the whole world, according to WUR. Compared with raising animals, sugar kelp production has a far lower impact on greenhouse gas emissions per unit of protein and avoids issues associated with land use. Making sugar kelp attractive and affordable at large scale will require private and public intervention, however, Parodi warns in his study.
Economic-Ecological Gains: Biogas
sargassum can be used for biogas production, but it appears to require pretreatment
sargassum can be used for biogas production, but it appears to require pretreatment: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/494 https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/en11030494 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/700346348775669810/tapia-tussell2018.pdf
In fact, the fungal pretreatment produced a 20% increase in methane yield, with important amounts of alkali metals Ca, K, Mg, Na of 78 g/L, ash 35.5% and lignin 15.6%. It is unlikely that high concentrations of ash and alkali metals will produce an ideal feedstock for combustion or pyrolysis, but they can be recommended for a biological process.
Economic-Medical Gains: Antibiotic
Sargassum likely contains an antibiotic of unknown identity
Sargassum likely contains an antibiotic of unknown identity: https://cen.acs.org/content/cen/articles/97/i34/Sargassum-strangling-tourism-Caribbean-scientists.html
Milledge, whose background is in biofuels, is interested in testing the seaweed s viability as a feedstock for biogas the gases, such as methane, that are emitted by microbes as they digest the seaweed. Although its empirical formula would indicate that it s got a good biogas potential, it doesn t in practice produce very much biogas, he says. The reason may be that the seaweed contains compounds inhibiting the bacteria trying to digest it. Milledge s ideal scenario would be to identify those inhibitors, extract them, and then market them for their antibacterial properties. Removing them for sale would be a win-win because it would allow the microbes to chow down on the seaweed and increase biogas yield.
some algae contain an antibiotic ( -glucan) that may increase gut resistance to infection
some algae contain an antibiotic ( -glucan) that may increase gut resistance to infection: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377840118306783 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2018.12.004
Results of this experiment revealed that inclusion of high dose glucan reduced (P < 0.05) frequency of diarrhea (29.01% vs. 17.28%) for the entire experimental period. This was likely due to the reduced (P < 0.05) gut permeability and increased (P < 0.05) mRNA expression of gut barrier function genes (Claudin, Occludin, and MUC2) in jejunal mucosa of E. coli challenged pigs as -glucan supplemented. Supplementation of -glucan also reduced (P < 0.05) white blood cells, neutrophils, serum tumor necrosis factor (TNF)- , cortisol, and haptoglobin, and down-regulated (P < 0.05) the mRNA expression of several immune genes (IL1B, IL6, and TNFA) in ileal mucosa of E. coli challenged pigs, compared with the control diet. In conclusion, in feed supplementation of algae-derived -glucan alleviated diarrhea of F18 E. coli infected pigs by enhancing gut integrity. Feeding -glucan also boosted host immune response against E. coli infection.
Marx Not a Marxist: Out of Context
Engels 1882: "Marx was not a Marxist" in context
Engels 1882: "Marx was not a Marxist" in context: https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1882/letters/82_11_02.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2485112/f0c994 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/864304336972021820/mecw42.pdf
Now what is known as Marxism in France is, indeed, an altogether peculiar product so much so that Marx once said to Lafargue: Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste. [If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist]
^ search "revolutionary phrase-mongering" for more context
^ search "revolutionary phrase-mongering" for more context
Luxemburg: Marxism Is Socialism
Luxemburg 1899: Marxism *is* socialism; rejection of Marxism is a return to childish socialism or bourgeois ideology
Luxemburg 1899: Marxism *is* socialism; rejection of Marxism is a return to childish socialism or bourgeois ideology: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/ch10.htm https://swp.org.uk/pamphlets/reform-or-revolution/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792776209028612126/luxemburg1899.pdf
But after the development of the class struggle and its reflex in its social conditions had led to the abandonment of these theories and to the elaboration of the principles of scientific socialism, there could be no socialism at least in Germany outside of Marxist socialism and there could be no socialist class struggle outside of social democracy. From then on socialism and Marxism, the proletarian struggle for emancipation and social democracy, were identical. That is why the return to pre-Marxist socialist theories no longer signifies today a return to the seven-league boots of the childhood of the proletariat, but a return to the puny worn-out slippers of the bourgeoisie.
Modern Writers
Bruenig 2021: Marx was just another socialist thinker
Bruenig 2021: Marx was just another socialist thinker: https://mattbruenig.com/2021/05/12/the-private-property-and-personal-property-distinction/
As a general matter, I am not one who thinks that socialism is the same thing as what Marx wrote. The tradition both predates and postdates Marx and, like most thinkers, Marx s writing has all sorts of contradictions and errors in it. He s not the prophet of socialism. He s just another thinker in the tradition.
Das Kapital
if someone claims to have read "Das Kapital":
if someone claims to have read "Das Kapital":
ask them what the difference is between labor and lower power: Gotha Programme
if someone claims to have read Critique of the Gotha Programme:
if someone claims to have read Critique of the Gotha Programme:
ask them whether workers under Marxian socialism should receive the diminished or undiminished value (perhaps "full fruits") of their labor; Marx clearly states that workers only receive the value of their labor after deductions are made as necessary to pay for capital, "common satisfaction of needs", "poor relief", and communal means of consumption ("social stock"): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm Origin of Family and the State
if someone claims to have read Origin of the Family and the State:
if someone claims to have read Origin of the Family and the State:
- ask them what the three stages of hitherto existing civilization are; roughly "tribal", "feudal", "capitalist" is acceptable
- ask them what the three stages of hitherto existing civilization are; roughly "tribal", "feudal", "capitalist" is acceptable
Vitali, Glattfelder, Battiston 2011: just 147 firms control 40% of wealth held by the 43,060 transnational corporations in the ORBIS database; just 737 firms control 80% of wealth
Effect on Policy
Vitali 2011 is reasonably valid and their results suggest that transnational corporations have significant control over the behavior of corporations across the world and possibly on public policy
Vitali 2011 is reasonably valid and their results suggest that transnational corporations have significant control over the behavior of corporations across the world and possibly on public policy: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-politics/article/network-of-global-corporate-control-implications-for-public-policy/B182B46208CA18006AC2D5183F7BE9FC https://sci-hub.se/10.1515/bap-2012-0049 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779162324539277342/compston2013.pdf
This article has shown that there are good reasons to believe that the capacity of TNCs to influence public policy is greater than previously thought due to the discovery that TNC ownership and control is extremely concentrated and centralized. The high degree of concentration makes it easier for TNCs to agree on political action.
Marx Quotes on Source of Alienation
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm
All these consequences are implied in the statement that the worker is related to the product of his labor as to an alien object. For on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself, the poorer he himself his inner world becomes, the less belongs to him as his own. It is the same in religion. The more man puts into God, the less he retains in himself. The worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object. Hence, the greater this activity, the more the worker lacks objects. Whatever the product of his labor is, he is not. Therefore, the greater this product, the less is he himself.
Extent of Job Dissatisfaction
72% of North Americans are not engaged in their jobs; however, North Americans are the most engaged of any world region
72% of North Americans are not engaged in their jobs; however, North Americans are the most engaged of any world region: http://news.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-work.aspx
Supervision, Routinization and Alienation
alienation from work (feelings of powerlessness, self-estrangement, and normlessness) directly correlates with higher occupational self-direction (routinization, close supervision) and indirectly correlates with higher worker ownership & higher hierarchical position
alienation from work (feelings of powerlessness, self-estrangement, and normlessness) directly correlates with higher occupational self-direction (routinization, close supervision) and indirectly correlates with higher worker ownership & higher hierarchical position: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/226272 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/226272 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/763843180180668426/kohn1976.pdf
^ definition of alienation
^ definition of alienation: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/226272 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/226272 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/763843180180668426/kohn1976.pdf
The intent of this analysis, then, is to appraise two related hypotheses suggested by Marx's analysis of the occupational sources of alienation. One hypothesis, emphasizing loss of control over the products of one's labor, posits that ownership and hierarchical position are of crucial importance with respect to alienation (and also ascribes an important, if secondary, role to division of labor). The other hypothesis, emphasizing loss of control over the process of labor, suggests that (at least within an industrialized, capitalist society) such determinants of occupational selfdirection as closeness of supervision, routinization, and substantive complexity overshadow ownership, hierarchical position, and division of labor in their effects on alienation
Powerlessness and Alienation
powerlessness (lack of control over one's work) is directly and indirectly correlated with feelings of helplessness and alienation from work
powerlessness (lack of control over one's work) is directly and indirectly correlated with feelings of helplessness and alienation from work: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0749597889900514 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0749-5978(89)90051-4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779052089879035904/ashforth1989.pdf
Because of the centrality of the powerlessness construct in the adjustment model, the construct was assessed by five measures: (1) the 3-item Job Autonomy Scale from the Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham, 1980), (2) the 4-item Job Authority scale from the revised Organizational Assessment Instrument (Van de Ven & Ferry, 1980), (3) self-reported job grade, (4) ratings of autonomy and participation (based on job title) by one job evaluation specialist from each plant (Interrater reliability over the 10 general job families used for classitication purposes: r = .73, p < .Ol), and (5) a 324tem Powerlessness scale adapted from a number of sources (Aiken & Hage, 1966; Bacharach & Aiken, 1979; Kirsch & Lengermann, 1972; Moth, Cammann, & Cooke, 1983; Shepard, 1972; Taylor & Bowers, 1972; Van de Ven & Ferry, 1980).
^ reminder that unions don't guarantee worker participation
^ reminder that unions don't guarantee worker participation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0749597889900514 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0749-5978(89)90051-4 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779052089879035904/ashforth1989.pdf
The plants differed in several respects: (1) Plant 1 employs 3,500 people, Plant 2, 600; (2) only Plant 1 is unionized[.] [....] According to job evaluation specialists at the two plants, the higher powerlessness at Plant 1 is attributable to the greater use of quality circles and participative management at Plant 2. And indeed, subjects at Plant 1 reported a greater lack of participation ranging from 22% to 31% across the 10 job families studied, but no difference in the lack of autonomy.
Summary
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Rosa Luxemburg all claimed that real wages under capitalism would tend to decline in real terms until they hit a "starvation", "famine", "biological", etc. minimum limit (below which workers would be unable to maintain and reproduce themselves). This is incorrect, as real wages have risen explosively since the 1820's.
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Rosa Luxemburg all claimed that real wages under capitalism would tend to decline in real terms until they hit a "starvation", "famine", "biological", etc. minimum limit (below which workers would be unable to maintain and reproduce themselves). This is incorrect, as real wages have risen explosively since the 1820's.
wiki
Real Wages Have Increased
OECD 2014: real wages have enormously grown since the 1820's; real wages are expressed here as number of subsistence baskets that a construction laborer could earn
^ volume 2
animation
The Engels Pause and Stagnating Real Wages in Marx's Time
Allen 2007: the Engels pause suggests that real wages did not rise with productivity in Britain from ~1770-1840
Allen 2007: the Engels pause suggests that real profit rose enormously from ~1800-1850 but stabilized after the 1860's
Allen 2007b: defends above results against Clark
But Marx Rejected the Iron Law of Wages!
Engels 1875: Marx rejected the Malthusian iron law of wages, but this does not mean that he rejected a wage system altogether
Engels 1875: Marx rejected the Malthusian iron law of wages, but this does not mean that he rejected a wage system altogether: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_03_18.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
Thirdly, our people have allowed themselves to be saddled with the Lassallean iron law of wages which is based on a completely outmoded economic view, namely that on average the workers receive only the minimum wage because, according to the Malthusian theory of population, there are always too many workers (such was Lassalle s reasoning). Now in Capital Marx has amply demonstrated that the laws governing wages are very complex, that, according to circumstances, now this law, now that, holds sway, that they are therefore by no means iron but are, on the contrary, exceedingly elastic, and that the subject really cannot be dismissed in a few words, as Lassalle imagined. Malthus argument, upon which the law Lassalle derived from him and Ricardo (whom he misinterpreted) is based, as that argument appears, for instance, on p. 5 of the Arbeiterlesebuch, where it is quoted from another pamphlet of Lassalle s, [9] is exhaustively refuted by Marx in the section on Accumulation of Capital. Thus, by adopting the Lassallean iron law one commits oneself to a false proposition and false reasoning in support of the same.
But What About Baumol 1983? Literal Misquotes!
Baumol 1983
Marx Quotes: No Increase in Real Wages
Marx 1865: capitalism forces labor towards its minimum limit, definied as "the value of the necessaries required for [the] maintenance and reproduction" of human laborers
Marx 1865: capitalism forces labor towards its minimum limit, definied as "the value of the necessaries required for [the] maintenance and reproduction" of human laborers: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808476261105532948/marx1975.pdf
I might answer by a generalization, and say that, as with all other commodities, so with labour, its market price will, in the long run, adapt itself to its value; that, therefore, despite all the ups and downs, and do what he may, the working man will, on an average, only receive the value of his labour, which resolves into the value of his labouring power, which is determined by the value of the necessaries required for its maintenance and reproduction, which value of necessaries finally is regulated by the quantity of labour wanted to produce them.
Marx 1865: capitalism forces wages (the value and price of labor-power) towards its minimum limit
Marx 1865: capitalism forces wages (the value and price of labor-power) towards its minimum limit: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808476261105532948/marx1975.pdf
These few hints will suffice to show that the very development of modern industry must progressively turn the scale in favour of the capitalist against the working man, and that consequently the general tendency of capitalistic production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages, or to push the value of labour more or less to its minimum limit.
Marx 1867: the minimum limit of wages (the value and price of labor-power) is the value and price of the commodities required to maintain and reproduce human laborers
Marx 1867: the minimum limit of wages (the value and price of labor-power) is the value and price of the commodities required to maintain and reproduce human laborers: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
The minimum limit of the value of labour-power is determined by the value of the commodities, without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew his vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that are physically indispensable. If the price of labour-power fall to this minimum, it falls below its value, since under such circumstances it can be maintained and developed only in a crippled state. But the value of every commodity is determined by the labour-time requisite to turn it out so as to be of normal quality.
Marx 1867: as productivity increases, capitalism forces workers to accept worse conditions
Marx 1867: as productivity increases, capitalism forces workers to accept worse conditions: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
[W]ithin the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers[.] [....] It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always equilibrates the relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.
Marx Quotes: No Increase in Real Wages, Despite Worker Struggle
Marx 1865: 99% of worker struggles to raise wages merely prevent it from lowering
Marx 1865: 99% of worker struggles to raise wages merely prevent it from lowering: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808476261105532948/marx1975.pdf
I think I have shown that their struggles for the standard of wages are incidents inseparable from the whole wages system, that in 99 cases out of 100 their efforts at raising wages are only efforts at maintaining the given value of labour, and that the necessity of debating their price with the capitalist is inherent to their condition of having to sell themselves as commodities. By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.
Marx 1865: worker struggle can slow the downward movement of wages but not stop it
Marx 1865: worker struggle can slow the downward movement of wages but not stop it: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/808476261105532948/marx1975.pdf
hey ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market.
Marx Quotes: No Increase in Real Wages of English Workers
Marx 1864: real wages declines from 1852 to 1861; it is "truth demonstrable to every unprejudiced mind" that "development of the productive powers of labor" will increase "the miseries of the industrious masses"
Marx 1864: real wages declines from 1852 to 1861; it is "truth demonstrable to every unprejudiced mind" that "development of the productive powers of labor" will increase "the miseries of the industrious masses": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/10/27.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484944/3c91db https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886716594741469184/mecw20.pdf
In all of them there has taken place, since 1848, an unheard-of development of industry, and an unheard-of expansion of imports and exports. In all of them, as in England, a minority of the working classes got their real wages somewhat advanced; while in most cases the monetary rise of wages denoted no more a real access of comforts than the inmate of the metropolitan poorhouse or orphan asylum, for instance, was in the least benefited by his first necessaries costing 9 15s. 8d. in 1861 against 7 7s. 4d. in 1852. Everywhere the great mass of the working classes were sinking down to a lower depth, at the same rate at least that those above them were rising in the social scale. In all countries of Europe it has now become a truth demonstrable to every unprejudiced mind, and only decried by those whose interest it is to hedge other people in a fool s paradise, that no improvement of machinery, no appliance of science to production, no contrivances of communication, no new colonies, no emigration, no opening of markets, no free trade, not all these things put together, will do away with the miseries of the industrious masses; but that, on the present false base, every fresh development of the productive powers of labor must tend to deepen social contrasts and point social antagonisms.
Engels Quote: No Increase in Real Wages
Engels 1877: capitalism forces wages down to a "famine minimum"
Engels 1877: capitalism forces wages down to a "famine minimum": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484972/4ea25e https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792843997320183859/engels1877.pdf
Machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working class; that the instruments of labour constantly tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the labourer; that the very product of the worker is turned into an instrument for his subjugation. [....] Thus it comes about that the overwork of some becomes the preliminary condition for the idleness of others, and that modern industry, which hunts after new consumers over the whole world, forces the consumption of the masses at home down to a starvation minimum, and in doing this destroys its own home market.
Luxemburg Quote: No Increase in Real Wages
Luxemburg 1913: Under capitalism, real wages tend to be driven towards the socially determined minimum
Luxemburg 1913: Under capitalism, real wages tend to be driven towards the socially determined minimum: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch04.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
In its capitalist form, this division shows itself not only in the qualitative peculiarities of both v and s as already outlined, but also in their quantitative relationship: v tends to become depressed to a minimum level, just sufficient for the physiological and social existence of the worker, and s tends to increase continually at the cost of, and relative to, v.
Luxemburg 1913: Rodbertus incorrectly rejects the objective economic law that wages are reduced to the minimum of subsistence
Luxemburg 1913: Rodbertus incorrectly rejects the objective economic law that wages are reduced to the minimum of subsistence: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch04.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
Rodbertus, after having thus turned everything upside down, after deriving the exchange value of labour from competition, now immediately derives its value from its exchange value. Under the laws of exchange value, labour, like produced goods, comes to have a kind of cost value which exercises some magnetic effects upon its exchange value, the amount of the labour wage. It is that particular amount of payment which is necessary for the maintenance of labour, in other words, which enables labour to continue, if only in the persons of its progeny it is the so-called minimum of subsistence . For Rodbertus, however, this is not a statement of objective economic laws, but merely an object for moral indignation. He calls the thesis of the classical school, that labour is worth no more than the wages it can command, a cynical statement, and he is determined to expose the string of lies leading to this crude and unethical conclusion.8
Luxembourg Summaries: No Increase in Real Wages
Robinson 1968: Luxemburg assumes constant real wages
Robinson 1968: Luxemburg assumes constant real wages: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Accumulation_of_Capital/BRzDDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT5 https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
The operation of the capitalist system is presumed to depress the level of wages down to the limit set by the minimum subsistence of the worker and his family.
In Section II [....] [r]eal wages tend to be constant in terms of commodities, thus the value of labour power is falling, and the share of surplus in net income is rising (s/v, the rate of exploitation, is rising).
Section III [...] opens with a return to Marx s model for a capitalist system with accumulation going on. Our author then sets out a fresh model allowing for technical progress. The rate of exploitation (the ratio of surplus to wages) is rising, for real wages remain constant while output per man increases.
Rosa Luxemburg, as we have seen, neglects the rise in real wages which takes place as capitalism develops, and denies the internal inducement to invest provided by technical progress, two factors which help to rescue capitalism from the difficulties which it creates for itself. She is left with only one influence (economic imperialism) to account for continuous capital accumulation, so that her analysis is incomplete.
Rosseas 1979: Luxemburg assumes constant real wages at the social determined minimum
Rosseas 1979: Luxemburg assumes constant real wages at the social determined minimum: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01603477.1979.11489120 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/01603477.1979.11489120 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792781193123856394/rousseas1979.pdf
When technological change is introduced into the model, the organic composition of capital (c/v) rises, as does the rate of surplus value. This, however, is based on a critical assumption in Luxemburg's analysis, namely, that real wages do not increase and are maintained at the socially determined minimum. [....] As Joan Robinson observes, Luxemburg not only neglected the rise in real wages under capitalism (which the revisionist Eduard Bernstein had so strongly argued), she also neglected "the internal inducement to invest provided by technical progress," thus underestimating two important ways in which capitalism could realize its surplus value in a closed system.
Marx Quote: Decrease in Labor Share of Income
Marx 1847: wages may rise if capital growth is high, but wages relative to profits will still fall
Marx 1847: wages may rise if capital growth is high, but wages relative to profits will still fall: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch06.htm https://u1lib.org/book/920045/7dbb9c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/804512690532909066/marx1847.pdf
An appreciable rise in wages presupposes a rapid growth of productive capital. Rapid growth of productive capital calls forth just as rapid a growth of wealth, of luxury, of social needs and social pleasures. Therefore, although the pleasures of the labourer have increased, the social gratification which they afford has fallen in comparison with the increased pleasures of the capitalist, which are inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the stage of development of society in general. Our wants and pleasures have their origin in society; we therefore measure them in relation to society; we do not measure them in relation to the objects which serve for their gratification. Since they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.
Marx 1847: real wages represent the price of labor relative to other commodities; relative wages (labor share of income) represents the share of value created by labor that labor receives
Marx 1847: real wages represent the price of labor relative to other commodities; relative wages (labor share of income) represents the share of value created by labor that labor receives: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch06.htm https://u1lib.org/book/920045/7dbb9c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/804512690532909066/marx1847.pdf
But neither the nominal wages i.e., the amount of money for which the labourer sells himself to the capitalist nor the real wages i.e., the amount of commodities which he can buy for this money exhausts the relations which are comprehended in the term wages. Wages are determined above all by their relations to the gain, the profit, of the capitalist. In other words, wages are a proportionate, relative quantity. Real wages express the price of labour-power in relation to the price of commodities; relative wages, on the other hand, express the share of immediate labour in the value newly created by it, in relation to the share of it which falls to accumulated labour, to capital.
Luxemburg Quote: Decrease in Labor Share of Income
Luxemburg 1913: Under capitalism, technical progress does not increase wages; instead, it decreases the labor share of income and increases the capital share of income (specifically, the share of income set toward net fixed capital formation)
Luxemburg 1913: Under capitalism, technical progress does not increase wages; instead, it decreases the labor share of income and increases the capital share of income (specifically, the share of income set toward net fixed capital formation): https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch06.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
Another law, Marx discovered, must also be applied here. The constant capital, continually overlooked by the classical economists, increases relative to the variable capital that is spent on wages. This is merely the capitalist expression of the general effects of increasing labour productivity. With, technical progress, human labour is able to set in motion ever larger masses of means of production and to convert them into goods. In capitalist terms, this means a progressive decrease in expenses for living labour, in wages, relative to the expenses for inanimate means of production. Contrary to the assumption of Adam Smith and Ricardo, enlarged reproduction must not only start with the division of the capitalised part of the surplus value into constant and variable capital, but, as the technique of production advances, it is bound to allocate in this division ever increasing portions to the constant, and ever diminishing portions to the variable capital. This continuous qualitative change in the composition of capital is the specific manifestation of the accumulation of capital, that is to say of enlarged reproduction on the basis of capitalism.
Luxemburg Quote: In Context, Does Not Contradict Above Because Increased Means of Subsistence Are Offset by Increased Population
Luxemburg 1913: capitalism requires increases in variable capital; this is achieved by ensuring worker means of subsistence sufficient to produce more workers (population growth) and by importing labor from precapitalist societies (imperialism)
Luxemburg 1913: capitalism requires increases in variable capital; this is achieved by ensuring worker means of subsistence sufficient to produce more workers (population growth) and by importing labor from precapitalist societies (imperialism): https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch26.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
As for enlarged reproduction or accumulation, in Marx s diagram the composition of the social product in terms of value is also strictly in proportion to its material form the surplus value, or rather that part of it which is earmarked for capitalisation, has from the very beginning the form of material means of production and means of subsistence for the workers in a ratio appropriate to the expansion of production on a given technical basis. [....] In Marx s diagram, the social product contains ever more means of subsistence for the workers as the material form proper to this variable capital. **The variable capital, however, is not really the means of subsistence for the worker but is in fact living labour for whose reproduction these means of subsistence are necessary.** One of the fundamental conditions of accumulation is therefore a supply of living labour which can be mobilised by capital to meet its demands. [....] The increasing growth of variable capital which accompanies accumulation must therefore become manifest in ever greater numbers of employed labour. Where can this additional labour be found? [....] Thus the increase in the variable capital is directly and exclusively attributed to the natural physical increase of a working class already dominated by capital. Since capitalist production can develop fully only with complete access to all territories and climes, it can no more confine itself to the natural resources and productive forces of the temperate zone than it can manage with white labour alone. Capital needs other races to exploit territories where the white man cannot work. It must be able to mobilise world labour power without restriction in order to utilise all productive forces of the globe[.] [....] This is a concrete example of the fact that capitalist production cannot manage without labour power from other social organisations.
Luxemburg 1913: diagram partially explaining the above: means of subsistence grow over time
More Reading to Do on the Topic
sd21 xxx todo
Terminology
rate of profit = r = (surplus value) / (capital invested) = (unpaid value of products of labor) / (variable capital invested and constant capital invested)
rate of profit = r = (surplus value) / (capital invested) = (unpaid value of products of labor) / (variable capital invested and constant capital invested)
return = R = (net change in value) / (initial value) = (final value - initial value) / (initial value)
return = R = (net change in value) / (initial value) = (final value - initial value) / (initial value)
rate of return on investment = r = R/t = (return) / (number of time periods)
rate of return on investment = r = R/t = (return) / (number of time periods)
return on investment = ROI = (net income) / (investment) = (income - investment) / (investment)
return on investment = ROI = (net income) / (investment) = (income - investment) / (investment)
Studies Suggesting No Systematic Trend in Rate of Profit: Present-Day
Basu 2012: after controlling for several "countervailing tendencies", for external variables that change the rate of profit (ie, surplus population, price of capital, etc.) the rate of profit has indeed fallen, but at a very slow rate
Basu 2012: after controlling for several "countervailing tendencies", for external variables that change the rate of profit (ie, surplus population, price of capital, etc.) the rate of profit has indeed fallen, but at a very slow rate: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0486613412447059 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0486613412447059 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/809796919743479808/basu2012.pdf
Resende 2017: there is no evidence that profit growth rates from 1949 to 2007 demonstrate a consistent falling pattern; instead, two "regimes" (rising and falling profit) have roughly equal magnitude and likelihood (method: Markov-switching model)
Resende 2017: there is no evidence that profit growth rates from 1949 to 2007 demonstrate a consistent falling pattern; instead, two "regimes" (rising and falling profit) have roughly equal magnitude and likelihood (method: Markov-switching model): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2017.1352074 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/13504851.2017.1352074 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/809800120476368896/resende2017.pdf "[Table 1] indicates distinct and symmetric means for the regimes of increasing and declining profit rates. [....] [From Table 2] one cannot reject the null of no serial correlation and therefore more confidence can be obtained on the portrayal of the GPR in terms of a MS model. [....] The results provide additional evidence against the Marxian hypothesis of a general declining tendency of the profit rate as it is not possible to ascertain a salient dominance of that regime. Such observation is further reinforced when the chronology of the regimes is established in Table 3. [....] The model appears to provide a satisfactory portrayal of the evolution of the profit rate and the pattern of long swings reinforces previous rejections of the hypothesis of a consistent declining tendency of the profit rate. In fact, no dominance appears to prevail in connection with the referred regime."
Dumenil and Levy 2011: the profit rate has fluctuated over time with no clear trend
Dumenil and Levy 2011: the profit rate has fluctuated over time with no clear trend: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Crisis_of_Neoliberalism/axStKtzFTJsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA267 https://u1lib.org/book/1203107/d71552 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/809818569520185425/dumenil2011.pdf
The Depression occurred in a period of comparatively low profitability by historical standards, but in the initial steps of a recovery, an intermediate period between two downward trends. The Great Depression can be labeled a "structural crisis," but unlike the crises of the 1890s and 1 970s, it was not the outcome of a fall of the profit rate.
Studies Suggesting Increase of Rate of Profit: Historical
Dumenil 2016: germany observed an increase of the rate of profit from ~4% to ~8% between 1851 and 1913: secular increase: [1] r_AB = r_{AB} = (Y_A + Y_B)/(A_A + A_B), Y_A = Business capital income, Y_B = Agricultural capital income, A_A = Agricultural fixed assets (excluding land), A_B = Business assets [2] data source: Hoffman
Dumenil 2016: germany observed an increase of the rate of profit from ~4% to ~8% between 1851 and 1913: secular increase: [1] r_AB = r_{AB} = (Y_A + Y_B)/(A_A + A_B), Y_A = Business capital income, Y_B = Agricultural capital income, A_A = Agricultural fixed assets (excluding land), A_B = Business assets [2] data source: Hoffman http://www.cepremap.fr/membres/dlevy/dle2016b.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/806932096932511764/dumeil2016.pdf
This does not mean, obviously, that the framework of trajectories la Marx and the thesis of the historical character of capitalism are disproved. First, the relevance of Hoffmann's data in a calculation of profit rates cannot be taken for granted; second, the dynamics of capitalism are more complex (Dum nil and L vy, 2016).
^ Dumenil 2016: this probably applies to other countries
^ Dumenil 2016: this probably applies to other countries: http://www.cepremap.fr/membres/dlevy/dle2016b.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/806932096932511764/dumeil2016.pdf This note does not investigate Maito's calculations for other countries. In the Figure 5 of Maito's second paper, profit rates of about 50 percent are shown after 1850 in the Netherlands and Sweden. It is hard to imagine the coexistence of such rates with the corrected estimates of 6.3 percent for Germany during the same years.
Studies Suggesting Decline of Rate of Profit
Maito 2014: the rate of profit has declined cyclically for the past 150 years
^ Maito 2015, final version
Maito 2014: Piketty focuses on rate of return (capital income / private wealth) rather than rate of profit (capital income / fixed capital invested); the former is flat but the latter is falling: [note: why would you just use fixed (constant) capital in the denominator rather than variable and constant capital?]
Maito 2014: Piketty focuses on rate of return (capital income / private wealth) rather than rate of profit (capital income / fixed capital invested); the former is flat but the latter is falling: [note: why would you just use fixed (constant) capital in the denominator rather than variable and constant capital?] https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/55839/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/809809615499296768/maito2014b.pdf
Roberts 2011
Freeman 13: the rate of profit has steadily declined since the end of WWII, accounting for finance capital
Freeman 13: the rate of profit has steadily declined since the end of WWII, accounting for finance capital: https://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/freeman13.pdf
^ Cockshott 2013: rate of profit tends towards population growth rate + innovation rate
Dumenil 2002: the Marxian rate of profit has declined in the USA from 1948 to 2000
Dumenil 2002: the Marxian rate of profit has declined in the USA from 1948 to 2000: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/048661340203400403 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/048661340203400403 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/806950018724528148/dumenil2002.pdf
Broad profit rate = (Net product - Labor compensation) / Fixed capital [....] Narrow profit rate = (Net product - Labor compensation - Indirect business taxes - Net interest) / (Fixed capital + Inventories)
Acar 2018: citing Dumenil and Levy 2001, profit rate fell 60's-70's, rose 70's-90's: (net product minus total cost of labor) / (value of the stock of physical capital)
Non-Marxian Studies: Secular Stagnation: Decline of Productivity and Growth (But Not Necessarily of Profit!)
growth in total factor productivity (TFP) has slowed for the past 50 years
^ get the data from figure 4 here
^ get the data from figure 4 here http://www.nber.org/papers/w18315.pdf xxx unformatted
western economies are growing slower than they were in and before 1950
western economies are growing slower than they were in and before 1950: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1205/1205.5671.pdf
Rates of Growth Over Time: Predicted by Both Marxian and Accounting Rate of Profit
Zachariah: the Marxian profit rate predicts growth rates in the USA and japan
Zachariah: the Marxian profit rate predicts growth rates in the USA and japan: http://carecon.org.uk/QM/Papers/Zachariah_AverageProfitRate_v7.pdf
Decline of Investment Over Time: World Data: Very Slow, if Happening
World Bank gross fixed capital formation as percent of GDP graph
Investment Over Time: Us Data: Long Timeframe:
USA, gross investment, 1800's-2010's
Sweden, gross investment, 1800's-2010's
France and UK, gross investment, 1800's-2010's
Terminology
terms
"Depreciation, also known as Consumption of Fixed Capital"
"Depreciation, also known as Consumption of Fixed Capital"
net investments = gross investment minus depreciation
net investments = gross investment minus depreciation
investments includes financial investments
investments includes financial investments
GFCF = gross fixed capital formation = value of net additions to fixed assets (excluding financial assets, stocks of inventories, other operating costs)
GFCF = gross fixed capital formation = value of net additions to fixed assets (excluding financial assets, stocks of inventories, other operating costs)
Inventory Valuation Adjustment (IVA)
Inventory Valuation Adjustment (IVA)
Capital Consumption Adjustment (CCAdj)
Capital Consumption Adjustment (CCAdj)
Fred Categories
Category: NIPA
Category: Domestic Capital Account
Category: Shares of GDP
GDP
Gross Domestic Product: 1929-2020
Investment
Category: Domestic investment
Gross domestic investment
Net domestic investment
Depreciation
Category: Consumptions of Fixed Capital
Consumption of fixed capital: Government: 1929-2020
Consumption of fixed capital: Government: 1929-2020: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A264RC1A027NBEA
Consumption of fixed capital: Private: 1929-2020
Consumption of fixed capital: Private: 1929-2020: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A024RC1A027NBEA
Consumption of fixed capital: Private: Domestic business: 1929-2020
Consumption of fixed capital: Private: Domestic business: 1929-2020: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W276RC1A027NBEA
Rate of Profit
Net value added of nonfinancial corporate business: Compensation of employees
Net value added of nonfinancial corporate business: Compensation of employees: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A460RC1A027NBEA
Identity Relation: 2020 Data
Gross: 4393
CFC-p: 2950
CFC-g: 608
Net: 834
4393 - 2950 - 608 = 834
Decline of Investment Over Time: Us Data: Very Slow, if Happening
Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment
Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A006RE1A156NBEA
Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment: Fixed investment: Nonresidential
Shares of gross domestic product: Gross private domestic investment: Fixed investment: Nonresidential https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A008RE1Q156NBEA
Crises (Falling)
Bloomberg 2020: crises have become less common over time -- a higher and higher proportion of countries in the world are growing at all times (fewer recessions)
Bloomberg 2020: crises have become less common over time -- a higher and higher proportion of countries in the world are growing at all times (fewer recessions): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-09/global-economic-data-paint-a-bleak-picture-for-the-future
Volatility (Falling)
2001 article: output volatility has enormously fallen in the US and other high-income countries (minus Japan)
2001 article: higher inflation and higher inflation volatility both predict higher output volatility -- but the time trend predicts lower volatility
the "Great Moderation" of US gross domestic product growth
decline in inflation volatility
no evidence post-2008 era has seen increased volatility
no evidence post-2008 era has seen increased volatility: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecin.12551 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/ecin.12551 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/775025610678468628/charles2018.pdf
In this paper, we focused on break detection in mean and in variance on output growth for a set of advanced countries, based on statistical test procedures. It turns out that the Great Recession period is characterized by large breaks in mean of transitory nature, while dates of breaks in variance are consistent with the Great Moderation period in the eighties. This leads us to conclude that there is no evidence favoring an end of the low output volatility period, but rather that the Great Recession has a dramatically short-lived effect on the output growth but not on its volatility.
Volatility: To Read
xxx
wef
2018 article
1999 paper
2002 paper
2018 article
world bank article
imf
oecd
use-value is the utility of a given good to a given consumer (can vary across consumers)
use-value is the utility of a given good to a given consumer (can vary across consumers)
exchange-value is the value for which a good can be exchanged from one person to another (aka price)
exchange-value is the value for which a good can be exchanged from one person to another (aka price)
capital-v Value or just "value" is the abstract, combined value of a good
capital-v Value or just "value" is the abstract, combined value of a good
labor - physical act of labor, what proletariat does
labor - physical act of labor, what proletariat does
labor power - capacity to do labor, what proletariat sells to bourgeoise
labor power - capacity to do labor, what proletariat sells to bourgeoise
Marx Quotes: Labor vs Labor Power
Marx 1875: wages represent a worker's sale of labor power; he performs both paid labor (labor income, wages) and free labor (profits, surplus value)
Marx 1875: wages represent a worker's sale of labor power; he performs both paid labor (labor income, wages) and free labor (profits, surplus value): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
Since Lassalle's death, there has asserted itself in our party the scientific understanding that wages are not what they appear to be -- namely, the value, or price, of labor but only a masked form for the value, or price, of labor power. Thereby, the whole bourgeois conception of wages hitherto, as well as all the criticism hitherto directed against this conception, was thrown overboard once and for all. It was made clear that the wage worker has permission to work for his own subsistence that is, to live, only insofar as he works for a certain time gratis for the capitalist (and hence also for the latter's co-consumers of surplus value); that the whole capitalist system of production turns on the increase of this gratis labor by extending the working day, or by developing the productivity that is, increasing the intensity or labor power, etc.; that, consequently, the system of wage labor is a system of slavery, and indeed of a slavery which becomes more severe in proportion as the social productive forces of labor develop, whether the worker receives better or worse payment.
Marx Quotes: LTV Only Applies to Averages of Goods
Marx 1867: marx asserts that LTV only applies to the averages of various goods, not individual goods
Marx 1867: marx asserts that LTV only applies to the averages of various goods, not individual goods: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
But without the leave, and behind the back, of our weaver, the old-fashioned mode of weaving undergoes a change. The labour-time that yesterday was without doubt socially necessary to the production of a yard of linen, ceases to be so to-day, a fact which the owner of the money is only too eager to prove from the prices quoted by our friend s competitors. Unluckily for him, weavers are not few and far between. Lastly, suppose that every piece of linen in the market contains no more labour-time than is socially necessary. In spite of this, all these pieces taken as a whole, may have had superfluous labour-time spent upon them. If the market cannot stomach the whole quantity at the normal price of 2 shillings a yard, this proves that too great a portion of the total labour of the community has been expended in the form of weaving. The effect is the same as if each individual weaver had expended more labour-time upon his particular product than is socially necessary. Here we may say, with the German proverb: caught together, hung together. All the linen in the market counts but as one article of commerce, of which each piece is only an aliquot part. And as a matter of fact, the value also of each single yard is but the materialised form of the same definite and socially fixed quantity of homogeneous human labour.
Summary
The mainstream economic theory of price is a combined supply-side and demand-side model called general equilibrium. Its modern form was formally stated by Ken Arrow and Gerard Debreu in the 1950's. Classical economists Adam Smith and Karl Marx argued that the relative ratio of usual prices (exchange-values) of two goods should be equal to the ratio of labor-time required to usually produce the good. There is no reason to believe price is determined only on the supply side.
The mainstream economic theory of price is a combined supply-side and demand-side model called general equilibrium. Its modern form was formally stated by Ken Arrow and Gerard Debreu in the 1950's. Classical economists Adam Smith and Karl Marx argued that the relative ratio of usual prices (exchange-values) of two goods should be equal to the ratio of labor-time required to usually produce the good. There is no reason to believe price is determined only on the supply side.
General Equilibrium Texts
Debreu 1954: formal proof that under certain assumptions, a general equilibrium occurs (finally, formally demonstrating Walras' argument)
Debreu 1959: enormous book exploring above mathematics
The LTV as a Supply-Side Theory
Roemer: the labor theory of value is a purely supply-side theory of price, but accurate price theories must include demand-side as well
Roemer: the labor theory of value is a purely supply-side theory of price, but accurate price theories must include demand-side as well: https://u1lib.org/book/815428/4e2811 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782280843875319808/roemer1988.pdf In fact, the labor theory of value is a supply-side theory, in which prices are thought to be determined entirely by their labor costs; in contrast, emphasizing the importance of the degree to which a commodity fulfills desires or needs or welfare in determining its price is the demand side. The correct theory of market price must take both supply and demand into account. There are some special cases in which demand will not affect price, which is technologically determined, but recourse to those cases should not be sought in an attempt to defend the labor theory of value.
Roemer: the labor theory of value's theoretical foundation (that the only thing in common between commodities is value embodied from labor) is not valid; all products share, at least, the fact that they are desired (a set of use-values)
Roemer: the labor theory of value's theoretical foundation (that the only thing in common between commodities is value embodied from labor) is not valid; all products share, at least, the fact that they are desired (a set of use-values): https://u1lib.org/book/815428/4e2811 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782280843875319808/roemer1988.pdf
Smith Quote: Primitive Society
Smith: If two commodities are exchanged, they must have a common value -- equal amounts of labor "usually required"
Smith: If two commodities are exchanged, they must have a common value -- equal amounts of labor "usually required": https://www.adamsmithworks.org/texts/chapter-vi-of-the-component-parts-of-the-price-of-commodities https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786795051795087360/smithWealth1to6.pdf
In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects, seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another. **If, among a nation of hunters, for example, it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does to kill a deer, one beaver should naturally exchange for or be worth two deer.** It is natural that what is usually the produce of two days' or two hours' labour, should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one day's or one hour's labour.
Marx Quote: All Societies
Marx: If two commodities are exchanged, they must have a common value
Marx: If two commodities are exchanged, they must have a common value: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
Let us take two commodities, e.g. corn and iron. The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g. 1 quarter corn = x cwt iron. **What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things - in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both.** The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange val'ue, must therefore be reducible to this third.
Marx: That common value is homogenous labor-time; the type of work is irrelevant ("joiner" or "mason" or "spinner")
Marx: That common value is homogenous labor-time; the type of work is irrelevant ("joiner" or "mason" or "spinner"): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but **what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract. Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure.** All that these things now tell us is, that human labour power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are Values.
Marx: LTV Only Applies to Averages of Goods
marx asserts that LTV only applies to the averages of various goods, not individual goods
marx asserts that LTV only applies to the averages of various goods, not individual goods: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
But without the leave, and behind the back, of our weaver, the old-fashioned mode of weaving undergoes a change. The labour-time that yesterday was without doubt socially necessary to the production of a yard of linen, ceases to be so to-day, a fact which the owner of the money is only too eager to prove from the prices quoted by our friend s competitors. Unluckily for him, weavers are not few and far between. Lastly, suppose that every piece of linen in the market contains no more labour-time than is socially necessary. In spite of this, all these pieces taken as a whole, may have had superfluous labour-time spent upon them. If the market cannot stomach the whole quantity at the normal price of 2 shillings a yard, this proves that too great a portion of the total labour of the community has been expended in the form of weaving. The effect is the same as if each individual weaver had expended more labour-time upon his particular product than is socially necessary. Here we may say, with the German proverb: caught together, hung together. All the linen in the market counts but as one article of commerce, of which each piece is only an aliquot part. And as a matter of fact, the value also of each single yard is but the materialised form of the same definite and socially fixed quantity of homogeneous human labour.
Marx: Only Socially Necessary Productive Labor Counts
todo 2
todo 2: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf In the process we are now considering it is of extreme importance, that no more time be consumed in the work of transforming the cotton into yarn than is necessary under the given social conditions. If under normal, i.e., average social conditions of production, a pounds of cotton ought to be made into b pounds of yarn by one hour s labour, then a day s labour does not count as 12 hours labour unless 12 a pounds of cotton have been made into 12 b pounds of yarn; for in the creation of value, the time that is socially necessary alone counts. Not only the labour, but also the raw material and the product now appear in quite a new light, very different from that in which we viewed them in the labour-process pure and simple.
Magarino: LTV explains relative prices
Magarino: LTV explains relative prices: https://youtu.be/0fLdVq4eCYc?t=206 The labor theory of value is clearly not a scientfic theory in the sense of belonging to natural sciences, but it is is a scientific theory as it belongs to the social sciences. It is a theory that tries to explain something about political economy. And what exactly does it try to explain? It tries to explain relative prices in capitalist societies where commodity exchange is generalized.
Magarino: LTV explains the fundamental value of a commodity (around which actual market prices fluctuate)
Magarino: LTV explains the fundamental value of a commodity (around which actual market prices fluctuate): https://youtu.be/0fLdVq4eCYc?t=428 The definition of value, in Marx, is abstract socially necessary labor time. And this being value, what he now does is say, this is actually going to say a lot about the way in which commodities exchange against one another in the market. And as we are going to see, he's goign to build the prices of production based on this labor, and these are going to be basically the fundamental prices, so these are going to be, in the same way that the fundamental value of a stock in financial theory is the total sum of dividends discounted at the interest rate, in the labor theory of value, we say that the fundamental value of a commodity is this price of production, which is the center of gravity of the actual market price. So it's not going to be necessarily equal, but it's going to the the regulator of market prices, but this is actually testable.
Magarino: LTV applies only to commodities, which are objects which people desire to exchange
Magarino: LTV applies only to commodities, which are objects which people desire to exchange: https://youtu.be/0fLdVq4eCYc?t=531 Marx makes it very clear in the first chapter of Das Kapital, that commodities are useful objects, and therefore people want to purchase them. If someone doesn't want to purchase an object, that object cannot be a commodity, because a commodity is a use value that has an exchange value. If an object has no use value, no one wants to buy it, it cannot have an exchange value, and it's therefore not a commodity.
Alternative Explanation for Exploitation
market socialist Roemer demonstrates that the labor theory of value is unnecessary to explain exploitation, which can instead simply is the proportion of a worker's output that is not paid back to that worker
market socialist Roemer demonstrates that the labor theory of value is unnecessary to explain exploitation, which can instead simply is the proportion of a worker's output that is not paid back to that worker: https://u1lib.org/book/815428/4e2811 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782280843875319808/roemer1988.pdf
Roemer therefore argues that exploitation is a property relation; put another way, exploitation results from scarce capital ownership (few machines) and abundant labor ownership (many workers)
Roemer therefore argues that exploitation is a property relation; put another way, exploitation results from scarce capital ownership (few machines) and abundant labor ownership (many workers): https://u1lib.org/book/815428/4e2811 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782280843875319808/roemer1988.pdf
^ see also this summary: Roemer 1988
Other Substances Than Labor Can Also Be Exploited
Roemer: the labor theory of value relies on the idea that labor is the only common property of commodities; this is absurd
Roemer: the labor theory of value relies on the idea that labor is the only common property of commodities; this is absurd: https://u1lib.org/book/815428/4e2811 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782280843875319808/roemer1988.pdf
Marx argued that the one property that all commodities had in common was their production by "abstract labor." It is hard to see why this should be regarded as the one property that all produced commodities have in common. They also share the property of being desired by people; and that property gives rise to a welfare-based theory of value (which is reflected in the statement occurring in neoclassical economic theory that prices are proportional to marginal utilities).
Roemer: mathematically, exploitation of labor is equivalent to exploitation of any other commodity; the only difference is that exploitation of labor might have normative problems
Roemer: mathematically, exploitation of labor is equivalent to exploitation of any other commodity; the only difference is that exploitation of labor might have normative problems: https://u1lib.org/book/815428/4e2811 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782280843875319808/roemer1988.pdf
Nitzan Summary
Nitzan and Bichler 2009: LTV researchers assume wages equal the value of labor power (among other assumptions), which results in circular reasoning
Nitzan and Bichler 2009: LTV researchers assume wages equal the value of labor power (among other assumptions), which results in circular reasoning: https://u1lib.org/book/884514/cb3e0f https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/787343598810824755/nitzan2009.pdf https://blairfix.github.io/capital_as_power/the-marxist-entanglement-i-values-and-prices.html
The most important of these assumptions are that the value of labour power is proportionate to the actual wage rate, that the ratio of variable capital to surplus value is given by the price ratio of wages to profit, and occasionally also that the value of the depreciated constant capital is equal to a fraction of the capital s money price. In other words, the researcher assumes precisely what the labour theory of value is supposed to demonstrate.
Robinson Critique
Robinson 1974: can't measure abstract labor
Robinson 1974: can't measure abstract labor: https://u1lib.org/book/2445823/472a30 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782291801570672660/robinson1974.pdf
The most important of these assumptions are that the value of labour power is proportionate to the actual wage rate, that the ratio of variable capital to surplus value is given by the price ratio of wages to profit, and occasionally also that the value of the depreciated constant capital is equal to a fraction of the capital s money price. In other words, the researcher assumes precisely what the labour theory of value is supposed to demonstrate.
Nitzan-Bichler First Critique: Unmeasurable Elementary Particle
Nitzan and Bichler 2009
Unfavorable Studies: Kliman 2002
Kliman 2002 first replicates the results of the other studies
Kliman 2002 first replicates the results of the other studies: https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/26/3/299/1711462 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/cje/26.3.299 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/787155135120801852/kliman2002.pdf
The measures of distance indicate that prices differed from adjusted values by an average of about +/-8% to +/-13%. Such results, and even somewhat weaker ones, are typically taken as providing strong confirmation that values are close to market prices. Yet what can we infer from this closeness and what can we not validly infer?
Kliman 2002 then adjusts the price and value of each sector by its aggregate labour and non-labour costs (which is agreat proxy for industry size)
Kliman 2002: after adjustment, no correlation between labor input and value occurs
Kliman 2002: after adjustment, no correlation between labor input and value occurs: https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/26/3/299/1711462 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/cje/26.3.299 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/787155135120801852/kliman2002.pdf
Once the effects of industry size are removed, it is not the case that prices are high in high-value sectors and low in low-value sectors. Rather, size-adjusted prices and values are close only in the sense that almost all sectors prices are close to almost all sectors values. I thus find that, on average, a sector s value is no better a predictor of its price than is a random variable with the same probability distribution as the values.
Kliman also demonstrates that transforming the values in the way they propose (dividing by total cost) would still produce values in line with theory, if the theory were correct
Kliman also demonstrates that transforming the values in the way they propose (dividing by total cost) would still produce values in line with theory, if the theory were correct: https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/26/3/299/1711462 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/cje/26.3.299 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/787155135120801852/kliman2002.pdf
Table 2 also shows that the simulations closely mirror theoretical expectations. This is important to emphasise because it has been suggested (OPE-L Archives, Feb. Mar., 1999; see esp. posts 439, 443, 457 and 476) that deflation of prices and values by costs destroys a valid relationship between them. The source of the problem is supposedly that costs and values are too highly correlated. Yet although the simulations assumed value cost correlations almost identical to the actual ones, they yielded average values for the intercept and slope terms extremely close to those predicted by theory, as well as small standard deviations. This again demonstrates that, if the labour theory of relative prices were true, the price value relationship would be preserved under transformation.
^ Zachariah response suggests that industry size deflation is wrong -- but presents no argumentation as to why
^ Zachariah response suggests that industry size deflation is wrong -- but presents no argumentation as to why: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/787159590440796170/zachariah2006.pdf
Hence it would be inappropriate to deflate industry outputs by size, as suggested in Kliman [10, sec. 4], in order to address any spurious correlation arising from aggregation. This should rather be done by using less aggregated data or comparing results to alternative predictors as in section 4.3.
^ Cockshott response is similar: [1] Question how we should account for "size" of industries and [2] Demonstrate that nonlabor inputs (such as chemicals) don't correlate well with output (labor is near 1:1, chemicals are .5:1)
^ Cockshott response is similar: [1] Question how we should account for "size" of industries and [2] Demonstrate that nonlabor inputs (such as chemicals) don't correlate well with output (labor is near 1:1, chemicals are .5:1): https://youtu.be/9-96kJSFFVI?t=671
Unfavorable Studies: Kliman 2004
Kliman 2004: presents an example of the type Nitzan presents more fully
Unfavorable Studies: Kliman 2005
Kliman 2005: responds to Cockshott and Cottrell's alternate simulation by pointing out that their alternate simulation does not
Unfavorable Studies: Nitzan and Bichler
Nitzan and Bichler 2009: presents an example demonstrating that, even when price and value are totally uncorrelated, aggregate price and value will be strongly correlated (demonstrating that this correlation is spurious)
^ Google Sheets version of the above
Favorable Studies: Cockshott, Cottrell, Zacharaiah
Cockshott 2018: integrated labor inputs to a sector strongly predict the total value of that sector
Cockshott 2018: integrated labor inputs to a sector strongly predict the total value of that sector: https://youtu.be/emnYMfjYh1Q?t=482
Zachariah 2006: integrated labor inputs to a sector strongly predict the total value of that sector (including in deviation)
Zachariah 2006: integrated labor inputs to a sector strongly predict the total value of that sector (including in deviation): https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/787159590440796170/zachariah2006.pdf
Zachariah 2006: other integrated inputs -- such as agriculture, chemicals, fuel, energy -- are much weaker predictors of total value than integrated labor inputs
Zachariah 2006: other integrated inputs -- such as agriculture, chemicals, fuel, energy -- are much weaker predictors of total value than integrated labor inputs: https://youtu.be/9-96kJSFFVI?t=259 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/787159590440796170/zachariah2006.pdf
^ all three author's arguments above are vulnerable to Kliman's critique that total size is the cause of spurious correlation
^ all three author's arguments above are vulnerable to Kliman's critique that total size is the cause of spurious correlation
Favorable Studies: Shaikh
Shaikh 1984
Shaikh 1994
Shaikh 1998: table 15.1, MAWD
^ shaikh's argument in all of the above papers is vulnerable to Kliman's critique that total size is the cause of spurious correlation
^ shaikh's argument in all of the above papers is vulnerable to Kliman's critique that total size is the cause of spurious correlation
Favorable Studies: Tsoulfidis and Paitaridis
Tsoulfidis and Paitaridis 2016
Bils and Klenow 2004: between 1995 and 2002, the median good held its price for a median of 4.5 months
Favorable Studies
Puty 2007: prices vary much less (about 3-4x) than supply over a business cycle
Shaikh 2016: prices vary much less (about 3-4x) than supply over a business cycle
High-Capital Low-Profit (Medium Quality, but Neoclassical Makes Similar Prediction)
industries with higher capital intensity ("more machines per laborer") have a lower profit rate, as the Marxist equation RoP = 1/((CC/VC)+1) 1/[constant capital/variable capital] [variable capital]/[constant capital] would predict
industries with higher capital intensity ("more machines per laborer") have a lower profit rate, as the Marxist equation RoP = 1/((CC/VC)+1) 1/[constant capital/variable capital] [variable capital]/[constant capital] would predict: https://youtu.be/9-96kJSFFVI?t=286 http://carecon.org.uk/QM/Papers/Zachariah_LabourValue.pdf
Dumeil-Levy Thesis: Managers Have Displaced Capitalists
Dumeil 2018: the capitalist class (own means of production) have been replaced by managers (control big companies) as those who take all the decisions that matter
Dumeil 2018: the capitalist class (own means of production) have been replaced by managers (control big companies) as those who take all the decisions that matter: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337531/managerial-capitalism/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779210323063341066/dumeil2018.pdf xxx read
^ review of above
Capitalists: People Who Earn Sufficient Capital Gains to Choose Whether to Labor or Not
Mohun 2014 preprint: ~2% of the US population are 'capitalists' and could subside on capital gains alone; the portion of capitalists and the portion of income going to capitalists both decreased until the 1970's and increased afterwards
Mohun 2014 preprint: ~2% of the US population are 'capitalists' and could subside on capital gains alone; the portion of capitalists and the portion of income going to capitalists both decreased until the 1970's and increased afterwards: https://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/classstructure1918to2011wmf.pdf
Suppose the capitalist-managerial class were defined as that group that has suffcient assets to generate a nonlabour income on which a typical member could survive without having to enter the labour market. This is independent of whether they choose to enter it (although the PS data show that on average they do so enter it); because of their level of nonlabour income, they are genuinely free to choose whether or not to take employment. Call this capitalist-managerial class "quasi-capitalist managers" or "Qc managers for short." Managers who are in a structurally different position, being forced to sell their labour-power, are noncapitalist-managers. Still managers, with supervisory responsibilities in production, they are not free to choose whether or not to take employment, because they do not have sufficient assets to generate a nonlabour income enabling them not to enter the labour market. Hence call them "labour-power dependent managers" or "Lpd managers" for short.
^ published version: Mohun 2015: xxx
Roemer: Neoclassical Maximizing and Wealth Inequality Is Sufficient to Yield Class
Roemer 1986: if we assume unequal wealth and rational maximizing, five classes of behavior naturally emerges from three behaviors: [1] working one's own capital; [2] hiring others to work one's capital; [3] selling labor on the labor market: this yields pure capitalists , small capitalists , artisans , semiproletarians , and proletarians
Roemer 1986: if we assume unequal wealth and rational maximizing, five classes of behavior naturally emerges from three behaviors: [1] working one's own capital; [2] hiring others to work one's capital; [3] selling labor on the labor market: this yields pure capitalists , small capitalists , artisans , semiproletarians , and proletarians : https://u1lib.org/book/815428/4e2811 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/782280843875319808/roemer1988.pdf
Roemer 1994: under capitalism, capital-owners have more interest in profit-increasing public bads (like pollution); under socialism, capital ownership is social and interest in public bads is lower
Roemer 1994: under capitalism, capital-owners have more interest in profit-increasing public bads (like pollution); under socialism, capital ownership is social and interest in public bads is lower: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/868620097 https://u1lib.org/book/3405993/b5bc91
Employment of the Highest-Income People in the USA (Yes, They Do Work)
Bakija 2012: occupations of the top 1% by year: ~30% management, ~16% medicine, ~12% finance, ~7% lawyers, ~4% STEM, ~6% not working, <5% each all else
Bakija 2012: occupations of the top 0.1% by year: ~40% management, ~15% finance, ~6% medical, ~6% not working, <5% each all else
Bakija 2012: just 13.6+4.6+1.7=19.9% of high-income individuals were managers of a closely-held business, suggesting that most high-income individuals receive very high compensation for labor
Bakija 2012: just 13.6+4.6+1.7=19.9% of high-income individuals were managers of a closely-held business, suggesting that most high-income individuals receive very high compensation for labor: https://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/BakijaColeHeimJobsIncomeGrowthTopEarners.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779160420212408320/bakija2012preprint.pdf
Managers vs Workers
Wright 1997: most managers are simply workers with skills; the working class proper was still over 70% of the labour force, excluding managers and capitalists
Wright 1997: most managers are simply workers with skills; the working class proper was still over 70% of the labour force, excluding managers and capitalists: https://u1lib.org/book/3613751/e3718d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779362600961048586/wright1997_small.pdf
Marx Quotes on "Functioning Capitalists" (Owner-managers) Declining and Money-Capitalists (Owners) Emerging
Marx 1894: manager-capitalists are akin to orchestra managers -- they need not pay their players, the theater owner does
Marx 1894: manager-capitalists are akin to orchestra managers -- they need not pay their players, the theater owner does: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm
The capitalist mode of production has brought matters to a point where the work of supervision, entirely divorced from the ownership of capital, is always readily obtainable. It has, therefore, come to be useless for the capitalist to perform it himself. **An orchestra conductor need not own the instruments of his orchestra, nor is it within the scope of his duties as conductor to have anything to do with the "wages" of the other musicians.**
Marx 1894: the rise of publicly-traded companies has eliminated the need for direct manager-capitalist owners
Marx 1894: the rise of publicly-traded companies has eliminated the need for direct manager-capitalist owners: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm
The wages of management both for the commercial and industrial manager are completely isolated from the profits of enterprise in the co-operative factories of labourers, as well as in capitalist stock companies. [....] Stock companies in general developed with the credit system have an increasing tendency to separate this work of management as a function from the ownership of capital, be it self-owned or borrowed. Just as the development of bourgeois society witnessed a separation of the functions of judges and administrators from land-ownership, whose attributes they were in feudal times. But since, on the one hand, the mere owner of capital, the money-capitalist, has to face the functioning capitalist, while money-capital itself assumes a social character with the advance of credit, being concentrated in banks and loaned out by them instead of its original owners, and since, on the other hand, **the mere manager who has no title whatever to the capital, whether through borrowing it or otherwise, performs all the real functions pertaining to the functioning capitalist as such, only the functionary remains and the capitalist disappears as superfluous from the production process.**
Marx 1894
Marx 1894: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch27.htm
III. Formation of stock companies. Thereby: [....] Transformation of the actually functioning capitalist into a mere manager, administrator of other people's capital, and of the owner of capital into a mere owner, a mere money-capitalist. Even if the dividends which they receive include the interest and the profit of enterprise, i.e., the total profit (for the salary of the manager is, or should be, simply the wage of a specific type of skilled labour, whose price is regulated in the labour-market like that of any other labour), this total profit is henceforth received only in the form of interest, i.e., as mere compensation for owning capital that now is entirely divorced from the function in the actual process of reproduction, just as this function in the person of the manager is divorced from ownership of capital.
In stock companies the function is divorced from capital ownership, hence also labour is entirely divorced from ownership of means of production and surplus-labour. This result of the ultimate development of capitalist production is a necessary transitional phase towards the reconversion of capital into the property of producers, although no longer as the private property of the individual producers, but rather as the property of associated producers, as outright social property. On the other hand, the stock company is a transition toward the conversion of all functions in the reproduction process which still remain linked with capitalist property, into mere functions of associated producers, into social functions.
Marxist Definition of the State
Marxists define the state as a tool of class warfare, not of "legitimate violence"
Marxists define the state as a tool of class warfare, not of "legitimate violence": https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#state
The state is the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. Thus, it is only in a society which is divided between hostile social classes that the state exists[.] [....] The machinery of violence that the bourgeoisie has selected, trained and appointed for the purpose of hoodwinking and crushing the workers[.]
Engels Quotes: State as Tool of Class Oppression
Engels 1875
Engels 1875: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_03_18.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist.
Engels 1884: the state arose to control class divisions; as class divisions disappear, we will "put the whole state machinery" into "the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze axe"
Engels 1884: the state arose to control class divisions; as class divisions disappear, we will "put the whole state machinery" into "the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze axe": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484974/38c451 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886841633033818112/mecw26.pdf
The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies which have managed without it, which had no notion of the state or state power. At a definite stage of economic development, which necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity because of this cleavage. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.
Engels Quotes: Government and Authority
Engels 1872
Musto 2020
Pure Stadial History and Pure Determinist/Materialist History Do Not Exist
Laibman 2005: there is no such thing as a pure stadial society and it is not certain that one societal form will progress to the next one
Laibman 2005: there is no such thing as a pure stadial society and it is not certain that one societal form will progress to the next one: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/siso.69.3.285.66516 https://sci-hub.se/10.1521/siso.69.3.285.66516 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886754034252402688/laibman2005.pdf
The paradigmatic case for [theoretical stages of development] is the general theory of social evolution, in which a discrete set of identifiable modes of production (e.g., communal, slave, feudal, capitalist, socialist/communist) succeed each other, in that order and only that order, each requiring the preceding and in turn laying required foundations for the following, and each containing an inherent (immanent) contradiction ensuring its progressive insufficiency and eventual replacement. **This sequence, however, exists nowhere in real history. History shows only a complex variety of societies in which the various modes of production are intertwined; transitions are combined in character and may be elongated or even thwarted by social, geographical and human-but-accidental external circumstances; and diffusion from one formation to another creates an open-ended (not infinite) variety of combinations, cycles, torch-relay leaps (Semenov, 1980), even regressions. In particular, there is no presumption that any given evolutionary path, or indeed that of humankind as such, will be completed: there is no guarantee of survival, let alone of fulfillment of potentials perceived in ye
^ Laibman 2005: Laibman still defends a stadial view of history by combining a stadial model with "capitalist diffusion"
re is no guarantee of survival, let alone of fulfillment of potentials perceived in yet-to-appear stages of development.5 Theo- retical determinacy at the level
re is no guarantee of survival, let alone of fulfillment of potentials perceived in yet-to-appear stages of development.5 Theo- retical determinacy at the level
Stadial Thinking: marxists.org
Marx and Engels had four basic forms of societal evolution: tribal, ancient, feudal, and capitalist
Marx and Engels had four basic forms of societal evolution: tribal, ancient, feudal, and capitalist: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/a/s.htm
^ critique by Marxists.org: three basic forms: tribal, feudal, capitalist
^ critique by Marxists.org: three basic forms: tribal, feudal, capitalist: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/l.htm#slave-society
This leads us to the necessity of critiquing early Marxists' historical conceptions. We now know countless examples of societies that had feudalism, sometimes with slaves, but without a slave society[.]
Thus, it is more accurate to describe the general evolution of human history as passing from tribal to feudal to capitalist society. While history is certainly not that simplistic, and there is a lot of uneven and blurred development, when looking at the essence of the productive system, slaves are not unique, nor is slave society common.
primitive communism: tribal mode of production / tribal society, no social classes
primitive communism: tribal mode of production / tribal society, no social classes: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/t/r.htm#tribal-society
antiquity: ancient or slave mode of production / ancient or slave society, classes are slaves, freemen, landlords, despots
antiquity: ancient or slave mode of production / ancient or slave society, classes are slaves, freemen, landlords, despots: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/l.htm#slave-society
medieval: Teutonic or feudal mode of production / Teutonic or feudal society, classes are serfs-bondsmen-peasants and lords-nobility
medieval: Teutonic or feudal mode of production / Teutonic or feudal society, classes are serfs-bondsmen-peasants and lords-nobility: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/e.htm#feudal-society
Marx and Engels Quotes on Stadial Stages
Marx 1859: mankind proceeds through "Asiatic", "ancient", "feudal", and "bourgeois" epochs of modes of production
Marx 1859: mankind proceeds through "Asiatic", "ancient", "feudal", and "bourgeois" epochs of modes of production: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm
Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient,[A] feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.
Engels 1884: four epochs: tribal society (savagery, barbarism -- claywork, animal domestication), ancient society (slavery), fuedal society (serfdom), capitalist society (wage labor)
Engels 1884: four epochs: tribal society (savagery, barbarism -- claywork, animal domestication), ancient society (slavery), fuedal society (serfdom), capitalist society (wage labor): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch01.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484974/38c451 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886841633033818112/mecw26.pdf
Morgan was the first specialist to attempt to introduce a definite order into the prehistory of man; unless important additional material necessitates alterations, his classification may be expected to remain in force. Of the three main epochs, savagery, barbarism and civilisation, he is naturally concerned only with the first two, and with the transition to the third.
Savagery the period in which man s appropriation of products in their natural state predominates; the products of human art are chiefly instruments which assist this appropriation. Barbarism the period during which man learns to breed domestic animals and to practice agriculture, and acquires methods of increasing the supply of natural products by human activity.
With slavery, which attained its fullest development under civilization, came the first great cleavage of society into an exploiting and an exploited class. This cleavage persisted during the whole civilized period. Slavery is the first form of exploitation, the form peculiar to the ancient world; it is succeeded by serfdom in the middle ages, and wage-labor in the more recent period. These are the three great forms of servitude, characteristic of the three great epochs of civilization; open, and in recent times disguised, slavery always accompanies them.
Capitalism Produces Growth, Which Is Key to Producing Communism
Marx 1847: capitalism, wage labor, and world markets will create the means of production that allow the "emancipatoin of the proletariat and foundation of a new society"
Marx 1847: capitalism, wage labor, and world markets will create the means of production that allow the "emancipatoin of the proletariat and foundation of a new society": https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
Before we conclude, let us draw attention to the positive aspect of wage labour. ) If one says "positive aspect of wage labour" one says "positive aspect of capital", of large-scale industry, of free competition, of the world market, and I do not need to explain to you in detail how without these production relations neither the means of production the material means for the emancipation of the proletariat and the foundation of a new society would have been created, nor would the proletariat itself have taken to the unification and development through which it is really capable of revolutionising the old society and itself. *Equalisation* of wages. ) Let us take wages themselves in the essence of their evil, that my activity becomes a commodity, that I become utterly and absolutely for sale.
Capitalism Produces Growth
Marx 1848: capitalism has produced more economic growth than all previous economic systems combined
Marx 1848: capitalism has produced more economic growth than all previous economic systems combined: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863919342391132240/Marx1848.pdf
**The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.** Subjection of Nature s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
Engels Quotes About Increased Machinery and Achieving Socialism-Communism
Engels 1847: private property will likely be abolished gradually, as the means of production (capital) are increased
Engels 1847: private property will likely be abolished gradually, as the means of production (capital) are increased: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
Question 17: **Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?** Answer: **No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.
Engels 1847: establishment of "a plan" (socialist central planning) will prevent crises, will redirect overproduction towards people's needs (to be consumed), and "create new needs and at the same time the means to satisfy them"
Engels 1847: establishment of "a plan" (socialist central planning) will prevent crises, will redirect overproduction towards people's needs (to be consumed), and "create new needs and at the same time the means to satisfy them": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
Question 20: What will be the consequences of the final abolition of private ownership? Answer: Above all, through society's taking out of the hands of the private capitalists the use of all the productive forces and means of communication as well as the exchange and distribution of products and managing them according to a plan corresponding to the means available and the needs of the whole of society, all the evil consequences of the present running of large-scale industry will be done away with. There will be an end of crises; the extended production, which under the present system of society means overproduction and is such a great cause of misery, will then not even be adequate and will have to be expanded much further. Instead of creating misery, overproduction beyond the immediate needs of society will mean the satisfaction of the needs of all, create new needs and at the same time the means to satisfy them.
Marx: Consequences of Increased Automation on Nature of Labor
Marx 1857: as capital increases, labor increasingly acts as the regulator of production instead of the direct producer
Marx 1857: as capital increases, labor increasingly acts as the regulator of production instead of the direct producer: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484939/3c1f35 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886709653004755034/mecw15.pdf
Labour no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather, the human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator to the production process itself.
He steps to the side of the production process instead of being its chief actor. **In this transformation, it is neither the direct human labour he himself performs, nor the time during which he works, but rather the appropriation of his own general productive power, his understanding of nature and his mastery over it** by virtue of his presence as a social body it is, in a word, the development of the social individual which appears as the great foundation-stone of production and of wealth.
Marx 1857: increased automation results in increased free time, art, and science
Marx 1857: increased automation results in increased free time, art, and science: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484939/3c1f35 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886709653004755034/mecw15.pdf
The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them. **Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth.**
Marx, Luxemburg: Contradiction of Captialism and Full Automation
Marx 1857: capitalism cannot reduce labor to zero without eliminating labor as source of value
Marx 1857: capitalism cannot reduce labor to zero without eliminating labor as source of value: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484939/3c1f35 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886709653004755034/mecw15.pdf
Forces of production and social relations two different sides of the development of the social individual appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however, they are the material conditions to blow this foundation sky-high. Truly wealthy a nation, when the working day is 6 rather than 12 hours. Wealth is not command over surplus labour time (real wealth), but rather, disposable time outside that needed in direct production, for every individual and the whole society.
Luxemburg 1913: socialism will open much larger areas of society to the "triumphal march of the machine", such that the "technical marvels" of capitalism will be "child's play"
Luxemburg 1913: socialism will open much larger areas of society to the "triumphal march of the machine", such that the "technical marvels" of capitalism will be "child's play": https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch23.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
[I]f the capitalist profit motive is abolished and a social organisation of labour introduced, the marginal use of the machine will suddenly be increased by the whole extent of the capitalist surplus value, so that an enormous field, not to be gauged as yet, will be open to the triumphal march of the machine. This would be tangible proof that the capitalist mode of production, alleged to spur on to the optimum technical development, in fact sets large social limits to technical progress, in form of the profit motive on which it is based. It would show that as soon as these limits are abolished, technical progress will develop such a powerful drive that the technical marvels of capitalist production will be child s play in comparison.
Luxemburg 1913: machinery under capitalism is economical only when labor cost to reproduce labor ("subsistence wage") > labor cost to produce machine; under socialism, machinery is economical when (labor required with machine, over machine lifetime - labor required without machine, over machine lifetime) > labor cost to produce machine
Luxemburg 1913: machinery under capitalism is economical only when labor cost to reproduce labor ("subsistence wage") > labor cost to produce machine; under socialism, machinery is economical when (labor required with machine, over machine lifetime - labor required without machine, over machine lifetime) > labor cost to produce machine: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch23.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
The growth of the constant at the expense of the variable capital is only the capitalist expression of the general effects of increasing labour productivity. The formula c greater than v (c > v), translated from the language of capitalism into that of the social labour process, means only that the higher the productivity of human labour, the shorter the time needed to change a given quantity of means of production into finished products.(13) This is a universal law of human labour. It has been valid in all pre-capitalist forms of production and will also be valid in the future in a socialist order of society. [....] The cost of the labour power which is replaced by the machine represents the lowest limit of the applicability of the machine, which means that the capitalist becomes interested in a machine only when the costs of its production [...] amount to less than the wages of the workers it replaces. [....] From the point of view of the social labour process, which is the only one to matter in a socialist society, the machine competes not with the labour that is necessary to maintain the worker but with the labour he actually performs. In other words, in a society that is not governed by the profit motive but aims at saving human labour, the use of machinery is economic-aims-indicated just as soon as it can save more human labour than is necessary for making it[.]
Is There a Consensus? Authors Disagree
Wolff and Leopold 2021: there is no consensus on the role of morality in Marx
Wolff and Leopold 2021: there is no consensus on the role of morality in Marx: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
The precise role of morality and moral criticism in Marx s critique of contemporary capitalist society is much discussed, and there is no settled scholarly consensus.
Riley 1983: calling Marx a nonmoralist is not controversial
Riley 1983: calling Marx a nonmoralist is not controversial: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24219230 https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nomos26&id=19&collection=journals&index= https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/877953600947638272/riley1983.pdf
This "causal" understanding of character as a "product" is the only really radical argument in Miller's paper, since his reading of the details of Marx's "nonmoral" social theory is helpful but (with one large exception) not terribly controversial.
Why It Matters: Communism Deserves Moral Justification
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the moralist position
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the moralist position: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/brenkert.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2650195/62db99 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/878039349852254218/brenkert1983.pdf Even more disturbingly, this interpretation suggests no basis for Marx s advocacy of communism other than that (a) it was his own personal view i.e. an arbitrary ultimate commitment or that (b) he simply opted to defend morally that which he saw as inevitable i.e. a kind of moral futurism or fatalism. Both suggestions leave much to be desired. The former contends that Marx s ethics are ultimately personal and arbitrary, even though, throughout his life, Marx emphasised the social dimensions of life, and argued that communism would be founded upon a rational, non-arbitrary, basis. The latter leaves us wondering why, if it was bound to come, Marx worked for that moral future. Indeed, how could he as he did condemn some of those things which came to pass within his own lifetime?
Anti-Moralism: Marx Rejected Ethical Postulates
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the anti-moralist position
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the anti-moralist position: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/brenkert.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2650195/62db99 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/878039349852254218/brenkert1983.pdf
One widespread view is that Marx had no ethics, he rejected morality, and envisioned a communism beyond both. [1] Marx is supposed to have founded a science which sought in an objective, morally neutral manner to understand the origin, growth, and collapse of capitalism as well as the ultimate succession of communism. One only has to read in the history of Marxism to appreciate how generally this view has been defended. Comments such as the following are wholly common: "Marxism is distinguished from all other socialist systems by its anti-ethical tendency. In all of Marxism from beginning to end, there is not a grain of ethics, and consequently no more of an ethical judgment than an ethical postulate. [2]" [....] Accordingly, it can be said without exaggeration that it has seemed to many that it is misleading at best, wrong-headed at worst, to speak of Marx having an ethics. He simply does not fit into the categories into which we expect those having an ethics and reflecting on morality to fit.
Luxemburg 1899: moral justification of socialism is childish compared to Marxist analysis
Luxemburg 1899: moral justification of socialism is childish compared to Marxist analysis: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/intro.htm https://swp.org.uk/pamphlets/reform-or-revolution/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792776209028612126/luxemburg1899.pdf
The theory of basing socialism on the moral notion of justice, on a struggle against the mode of distribution, of class antagonism as an antagonism between the poor and the rich, the effort to graft the cooperative principle on to capitalist economy all the nice notions found in Bernstein s doctrine already existed before him. And these theories were, in their time, in spite of their insufficiency, effective theories of the proletarian class struggle. They were the children s seven-league boots thanks to which the proletariat learned to walk upon the scene of history.
Sombart 1892: there is "not a grain of ethics in the whole of Marxism"
Sombart 1892: there is "not a grain of ethics in the whole of Marxism": https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_NHcRAAAAYAAJ/page/n497/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/879319525621907466/sombart1892.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archiv_f%C3%BCr_Sozialwissenschaft_und_Sozialpolitik Review of *Sozialismus and Kapitalistische Gesellschaftsordnung* by Julius Wolf, in Braun's Archive for Social Legislation and Statistics [Archiv f r soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik] Volume 5:
Wolf ought to have recognized this above all: that Marxism differs from all other socialist systems, which I propose to summarize under the designation of ethical socialism, by its anti-ethical tendency. There is not a grain of ethics in the whole of Marxism from start to finish, but consequently no more an ethical judgment than an ethical postulate. Neither does Marx claim at any point that surplus value is not "due" to the employer, nor that the worker has a "right to the full yield of labor". Now, however, a large part of Wolf's criticism amounts to an ethical argument with Marx about what is "due" or "improper" in today's order of production and income distribution [.]
Das h tte Wolf vor allem einsehen m ssen: dafs sich der Marxismus von allen brigen sozialistischen Systemen, die ich im Gegensatz zu ihm unter der Bezeichnung des ethischen Sozialismus zusammenzufassen vorschlage, durch seine antiethische Tendenz unterscheidet. Im ganzen Marxismus von vorn bis hinten steckt auch nicht ein Gran Ethik, folg- lich aber ebensowenig ein ethisches Urteil als ein ethisches Postulat. Weder behauptet Marx an irgend einer Stelle, dafs der Mehrwert dem Unternehmer nicht "geb hre" noch dafs der Arbeiter ein "Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag" habe. Nun l uft aber ein grofser Teil der Wolfschen Kritik auf eine ethische Auseinandersetzung mit Marx ber das "Geb hrliche" -- oder "Ungeb hrliche" in der heutigen Produktionsordnung und Einkommensverteilung hinaus[.]
Non-Moralism: Marx Rejected Doctrinal/Universal Morality but Not Rejecting Moral Values
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the non-moralist position
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the non-moralist position: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/brenkert.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2650195/62db99 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/878039349852254218/brenkert1983.pdf
There are, however, relatively straightforward problems with this view. For example, many of those who hold this view attribute a rather empiricist notion of science to Marx. But it is doubtful that Marx used such a notion of science. Indeed, Marx s claims about science must be understood in light of Hegel s claims about science. Marx s views were significantly influenced by Hegel and surely Hegelian science was not empiricist. Secondly, it is often noted that Marx was not, as one would expect a scientist to be, a neutral, dispassionate observer in his writings. This is as evident in his writings on political economy as it is in his newspaper articles. In Capital, for example, he condemns the egoism, exploitation, estrangement, degradation, etc. which capitalism brings in its train. Marx s writings are pervaded by a normative and partisan atmosphere. His commitment to the particular kind of social order which he sees his work as advancing is always obvious and constantly present. Further, this commitment is not simply a personal commitment, but one which he clearly believes that others should share. Finally, if Marx were a scientist without an ethics, it is unclear how we are to understand his many comments that communism will constitute a higher plane of existence for humanity, that there is a progressive nature to history, and that communism will institute a true realm of freedom.
Rosen 2000: Marx rejected certain moral doctrines but did not reject moral values
Rosen 2000: Marx rejected certain moral doctrines but did not reject moral values: https://scholar.harvard.edu/michaelrosen/publications/%E2%80%9C-marxist-critique-morality-and-theory-ideology%E2%80%9D https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/877953597957083136/rosen2000.pdf
On the one hand, Marx has a number of uncompromisingly negative things to say about morality. Moreover, after 1845 at least, he affirms that his own theory is not a utopian or ethical one but "real positive science". Yet, on the other hand, much of the language that he uses to describe capitalism is plainly condemnatory (for instance, that it is antagonistic, oppressive and exploitative). Does this not represent an inconsistency on Marx's part? Is he not moralizing and rejecting morality at the same time? [....] The interpretation depends on a contrast between certain doctrines typical of moral philosophy (which, it will be argued, Marx rejects) and the rejection of ethical values as such (to which, it will be argued, he is not thereby committed). Marx's antipathy to morality and moral theory as he found it in his own day is to be explained, I shall argue, by the role that morality plays, in his view, in helping to sustain the existing social order, as ideology.
Miller 1983
Miller 1983: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24219229 https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nomos26&id=19&collection=journals&index= https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/877953602063306812/miller1983.pdf
Distinctions between decency and indecency, what ought to be done and what ought not, have a role in his outlook. His arguments, primarily directed at choices among political and economic systems, may leave standing most ordinary morality concerning actions towards individuals. But it is also natural to adopt the narrower usage, and to see Marx as advancing a nonmorality.
Moralism: Marx Had a Moral System, but Did Not Explicitly State It
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the moralist position
Brenkert 1983: summarizes the moralist position: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/brenkert.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2650195/62db99 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/878039349852254218/brenkert1983.pdf """I shall argue instead that Marx has a moral theory and that this moral theory was integrally part of his scientific views. [....] I do not maintain that Marx formulated a moral theory in a manner comparable to the moral theories which past or present moral philosophers have formulated. Marx did not write a treatise, any pamphlets, or even any essays on ethics and morality. At the most we have various sections in larger works, paragraphs, and scattered comments on ethics and morality which are interwoven with his reflections on history, economics, and politics. Further, on those occasions on which he does speak of ethics he does not engage in moral reflection as traditional and contemporary moral philosophers have. He does not pose for himself the question, What ought I to do? as a way of entering into moral reflection. He does not set out, as Kant and others have, to search for and establish the supreme principle of morality by argument and consideration of the reasons and views of others. Thus, he does not, in any obvious way, urge the universalisation of the maxims of our actions (as Kant did) or the calculation of the greatest good our actions might promote (as J.S. Mill did). Such individual questions are quite secondary to Marx s concern for the social system within which people raise such questions. Nor does Marx attempt to develop a theory of the meaning and purpose of moral statements as individuals make them. As such, Marx was not a moral philosopher. There are few, I think, who would deny this. However, it does not follow that Marx did not have a moral theory. A person may be said to have a moral theory, even though he may never have explicitly formulated it.
Moralism With Performative Non-Moralism: Marx Rejected Morality to Distinguish Himself, but Accepted It
Wolff and Leopold 2021: Marx goes beyond "theoretical necessity" in critiquing morality (and refusing to use it as a justifier) in order to distinguish himself from contemporary reformist socialists and bourgeois do-gooders
Wolff and Leopold 2021: Marx goes beyond "theoretical necessity" in critiquing morality (and refusing to use it as a justifier) in order to distinguish himself from contemporary reformist socialists and bourgeois do-gooders: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
Marx wanted to distance himself from these other socialist traditions, and a key point of distinction was to argue that the route to understanding the possibilities of human emancipation lay in the analysis of historical and social forces, not in morality.
Communism clearly advances human flourishing, in Marx s view. The only reason for denying that, in Marx s vision, it would amount to a good society is a theoretical antipathy to the word good . And here the main point is that, in Marx s view, communism would not be brought about by high-minded benefactors of humanity. Quite possibly his determination to retain this point of difference between himself and other socialists led him to disparage the importance of morality to a degree that goes beyond the call of theoretical necessity.
Cohen 1983
Cohen 1983: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2253824 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/2253824 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/877967469061480468/cohen1983.pdf
And perhaps Marx did not always realize that he thought capitalism was unjust. For there exist texts, ably exploited by Wood, which suggest that, at least when writing them, Marx thought all non-relativist notions of justice and injustice were moonshine. If the texts really show that he thought so, then I would conclude that, at least sometimes, Marx mistakenly thought that Marx did not believe that capitalism was unjust, because he was confused about justice. (The italicized thesis is misreported, in two different ways, at pp. 9 and 42 of Marx and Morality (op. cit.) because of bad (copy?) editing.) At one point Wood approaches a thesis about Marx on capitalism and justice which resembles the one just stated, but he retreats from it on the ground that 'there is no sign that Marx sees anything morally wrong or unjust about . . . capitalism' (p. I5'). I think calling it 'robbery' is such a sign, and that saying 'Capitalist justice is truly to be wondered at!' (Capital, Volume I, op cit., p. 66o), with the sense the remark carries in its context, is another one.
^ Wolff and Leopold 2021: summary of Cohen 1983
^ Wolff and Leopold 2021: summary of Cohen 1983: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/ In other words, Marx, like so many of us, did not have perfect knowledge of his own mind. In his explicit reflections on the justice of capitalism he was able to maintain his official view. But in less guarded moments his real view slips out, even if never in explicit language.
Brenkert 1983: summarizes why Marx rejected contemporary moralities
Brenkert 1983: summarizes why Marx rejected contemporary moralities: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/brenkert.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2650195/62db99 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/878039349852254218/brenkert1983.pdf
Marx was indeed opposed to the morality and ethics of his time. They represented to him a kind of dream-like acquiescence in the face of the increasing degradation suffered by larger and larger numbers of people in modern society. Either they amounted to a kind of simple moralism in which moral conclusions were drawn, society was condemned or criticised, but (after all this) everything remained simply as it was. Or they amounted to an attempt to justify the status quo. [....] This opposition to the ineffectiveness, as well as the illusions, of morality and ethics can be found throughout Marx s writings[.] [....] With regard to moral philosophy, Marx s well-known eleventh thesis on Feuerbach captures his view perhaps most succinctly: The philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it (Theses on Feuerbach). As opposed to the moral philosophers and moralists of his time, Marx insisted that any creditable critical theory of man and society must clearly distinguish between appearance and reality. It must relentlessly pursue and analyse the common wisdom for the realities it conceals. Furthermore, such an account must show how human society really operates, how it can be and must be changed. In short, any critical science must be illusionless and effective.
Marx Anti-Moralist Quotes
Marx 1848: accepts the accusation that communism does "abolishes" "all morality"
Marx 1848: accepts the accusation that communism does "abolishes" "all morality": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863919342391132240/Marx1848.pdf [Accusation:] [Response:]
There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.
Marx 1845: communist and socialist views "shattered the basis of all morality"
Marx 1845: communist and socialist views "shattered the basis of all morality": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03n.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484913/cb376d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/878035158844968980/mecw5.pdf
[I]t was, of course, only possible to discover all this when it became possible to criticise the conditions of production and intercourse in the hitherto existing world, i.e., when the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat had given rise to communist and socialist views. That shattered the basis of all morality, whether the morality of asceticism or of enjoyment. Our insipid, moralising Sancho believes, of course, as his whole book shows, that it is merely a matter of a different morality, of what appears to him a new outlook on life, of getting out of one s head a few fixed ideas , to make everyone happy and able to enjoy life.
Marx Nonmoralist Quotes
Marx 1867: the fact that the seller of labor power (the worker) does not get as much value as the buyer (the capitalist) is not "an injury to the seller"
Marx 1867: the fact that the seller of labor power (the worker) does not get as much value as the buyer (the capitalist) is not "an injury to the seller": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
The fact that half a day s labour is necessary to keep the labourer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day. Therefore, the value of labour-power, and the value which that labour-power creates in the labour-process, are two entirely different magnitudes; and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in view, when he was purchasing the labour-power. [....] The circumstance, that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labour-power costs only half a day s labour, while on the other hand the very same labour-power can work during a whole day, that consequently the value which its use during one day creates, is double what he pays for that use, this circumstance is, without doubt, a piece of good luck for the buyer, but by no means an injury to the seller.
Marx Moralist Themes
Cohen 1983: Marx clearly implies morality in his frequent use of "theft" to describe profit and capitalization
Cohen 1983: Marx clearly implies morality in his frequent use of "theft" to describe profit and capitalization: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2253824 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/2253824 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/877967469061480468/cohen1983.pdf
In this operation 'equivalent is exchanged for equivalent', since the worker gets the full value of his labour power, but 'the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of (mit ihrem eignen, geraubten Geld)', since capitalists pay wages with money they get by selling what workers produce. Thus the worker, though paid the full value of his labour power, does not get the extra, or surplus, value he produces, and capitalist profit, and therefore capitalism, are 'based on theft (Diebstahl) of another's labour time' (Grundrisse, Penguin, 1973, p. 705). Now when Marx speaks here (and elsewhere: this is not an isolated text) of 'robbery' (or 'theft') he cannot mean 'robbery according to the rules of capitalism', since the transaction he considers robbery obeys those rules: what is wrong with capitalism is that the appropriation of surplus labour is not, by its rules, robbery, that when and because the worker gets the full value of his labour power, he is robbed.
Cohen 1983: Marx cannot be speaking of "robbery" under the rules/morality of capitalism, since profit and capitalization are not against the rules/morality of capitalism; this suggests a rejection of relativism
Cohen 1983: Marx cannot be speaking of "robbery" under the rules/morality of capitalism, since profit and capitalization are not against the rules/morality of capitalism; this suggests a rejection of relativism: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2253824 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/2253824 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/877967469061480468/cohen1983.pdf
Now when Marx speaks here (and elsewhere: this is not an isolated text) of 'robbery' (or 'theft') he cannot mean 'robbery according to the rules of capitalism', since the transaction he considers robbery obeys those rules: what is wrong with capitalism is that the appropriation of surplus labour is not, by its rules, robbery, that when and because the worker gets the full value of his labour power, he is robbed.
Marx Moralist Quotes
Marx 1867: "Capitalist justice is truly to be wondered at!"
Marx 1867: "Capitalist justice is truly to be wondered at!" https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
Admire this capitalistic justice! The owner of land, of houses, the businessman, when expropriated by improvements such as railroads, the building of new streets, &c., not only receives full indemnity. He must, according to law, human and divine, be comforted for his enforced abstinence over and above this by a thumping profit. The labourer, with his wife and child and chattels, is thrown out into the street, and if he crowds in too large numbers towards quarters of the town where the vestries insist on decency, he is prosecuted in the name of sanitation!
Marx 1857: "the evil of bourgeois society"
Marx 1857: "the evil of bourgeois society": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch02.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484939/3c1f35 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886709653004755034/mecw15.pdf
The way to do this: abolish prices. And how? By doing away with exchange value. But this problem arises: exchange corresponds to the bourgeois organization of society. Hence one last problem: to revolutionize bourgeois society economically. It would then have been self-evident from the outset that the evil of bourgeois society is not to be remedied by transforming the banks or by founding a rational money system .
Marx 1864: capitalism has produced "broken health, tainted morals, and mental ruin" of workers
Marx 1864: capitalism has produced "broken health, tainted morals, and mental ruin" of workers: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/10/27.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484944/3c91db https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886716594741469184/mecw20.pdf
If you want to know under what conditions of broken health, tainted morals, and mental ruin that intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power... entirely confined to classes of property was, and is, being produced by the classes of labor, look to the picture hung up in the last Public Health Report of the workshops of tailors, printers, and dressmakers!
Engels 1847: establishment of "a plan" (socialist central planning) will prevent "all the evil consequences" of capitalism and achieve "the satisfaction of the needs of all"
Engels 1847: establishment of "a plan" (socialist central planning) will prevent "all the evil consequences" of capitalism and achieve "the satisfaction of the needs of all": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
Question 20: What will be the consequences of the final abolition of private ownership? Answer: Above all, through society's taking out of the hands of the private capitalists the use of all the productive forces and means of communication as well as the exchange and distribution of products and managing them according to a plan corresponding to the means available and the needs of the whole of society, all the evil consequences of the present running of large-scale industry will be done away with. There will be an end of crises; the extended production, which under the present system of society means overproduction and is such a great cause of misery, will then not even be adequate and will have to be expanded much further. Instead of creating misery, overproduction beyond the immediate needs of society will mean the satisfaction of the needs of all, create new needs and at the same time the means to satisfy them.
Marx 1847: wage labor is "evil", because it converts labor to a commodity; capitalism will create the conditions that allow "emancipation of the proletariat and foundation of a new society"
Marx 1847: wage labor is "evil", because it converts labor to a commodity; capitalism will create the conditions that allow "emancipation of the proletariat and foundation of a new society": https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
Before we conclude, let us draw attention to the positive aspect of wage labour. ) If one says "positive aspect of wage labour" one says "positive aspect of capital", of large-scale industry, of free competition, of the world market, and I do not need to explain to you in detail how without these production relations neither the means of production the material means for the emancipation of the proletariat and the foundation of a new society would have been created, nor would the proletariat itself have taken to the unification and development through which it is really capable of revolutionising the old society and itself. *Equalisation* of wages. ) Let us take wages themselves in the essence of their evil, that my activity becomes a commodity, that I become utterly and absolutely for sale.
Marx 1847: "evil circumstances of the proletariat"
Marx 1847: "evil circumstances of the proletariat" https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1847/09/12.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
How long is it since the government was prohibiting newspapers from maintaining such exaggerations as that we might have a proletariat in Prussia? Ever since the Trier'sche Zeitung among others that innocent organ! was threatened with closure because it maliciously wished to present the evil circumstances of the proletariat in England and France as existing also in Prussia? Be that as the government wishes.
Engels Quotes
Engels 1846: liberalism is "emancipation of the middle class" and "liberty of money"; democracy is "emancipation of the working classes" and "liberty of man"
Engels 1846: liberalism is "emancipation of the middle class" and "liberty of money"; democracy is "emancipation of the working classes" and "liberty of man": https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1846/02/20.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
I have thought it necessary to make these few remarks upon the subject of middle-class government in order to explain two facts. The first is, that in all countries, during the time from 1815 to 1830, the essentially democratic movement of the working classes was more or less made subservient to the liberal movement of the bourgeois. The working people, though more advanced than the middle classes, could not yet see the total difference between liberalism and democracy emancipation of the middle classes and emancipation of the working classes; they could not see the difference between liberty of money and liberty of man, until money had been made politically free, until the middle class had been made the exclusively ruling class.
Social Spending (Good Trend)
among high-income countries, social spending made up ~1% of GDP in 1900 and ~25% in 2016
among high-income countries, social spending made up ~1% of GDP in 1900 and ~25% in 2016: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun
social spending has trended upward roughly linearly since the 1920's
social spending has trended upward roughly linearly since the 1920's: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun
State Spending (Vast Majority Is for Left-Wing Relevant Causes)
government spending as a portion of GDP has increased from about 10% in 1880-1900 to about 40% in 2000-2010
government spending as a portion of GDP has increased from about 10% in 1880-1900 to about 40% in 2000-2010: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-gov-spending-gdp
military spending is roughly the same as a century ago
government spending on healthcare has enormously increased over the past 100 years
government spending on healthcare has enormously increased over the past 100 years: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-health-expenditure-share-gdp-owid
government spending on healthcare has increased over the past 20 years in most world regions
government spending on healthcare has increased over the past 20 years in most world regions: https://ourworldindata.org/health-meta
Democracy (Good Trend)
about 1% of world population lived in democracies 200 years ago; today, about 50% do
about 1% of world population lived in democracies 200 years ago; today, about 50% do: https://ourworldindata.org/democracy
Calnitsky: Parliamentary Cretinism
Calnitsky 2021: since the 1880s, the working class has used dual power over production (strikes etc) and democratic power (elections etc) to slowly claw more and more social income from the bourgeois
Calnitsky 2021: workers nowadays have more to lose than their chains, because of rising living standards and physical asset ownership
Retrenchment and Asymmetric Polarization
Hacker and Pierson 2018: The Dog That Almost Barked
Workers and Democracy TODO
Usmani 2018: Democracy and the Class Struggle
Kadivar Usmani & Bradlow 2020: The Long March: Deep Democracy in Cross-National Perspective Get
Kadivar Usmani & Bradlow 2020: The Long March: Deep Democracy in Cross-National Perspective Get: https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/98/3/1311/5489226
Rasmussen Todo
Rasmussen 2019: compared to synthetic controls, countries with higher risk of communist revolution in 1919 saw significantly larger decreases in working hours over the next half decade
Rasmussen 2019: compared to synthetic controls, countries with higher risk of communist revolution in 1919 saw significantly larger decreases in working hours over the next half decade: http://tankona.free.fr/rasmussenknutsen619.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/965380864773083146/rasmussenknutsen619.pdf
Rasmussen and Pontussen 2017: Ghent system not beneficial after all: redo todo reread xxx
Knutsen and Rasmussen 2017: autocracies implemented old-age systems too: redo todo reread xxx
Rasmussen and Knutsen 2019: party institutionalization helped drive welfare growth: redo todo reread xxx
Rasmussen 2016: organized labor and the regulatory revolution: redo todo reread xxx
European Social Democracy: Rise and Fall (Bad Trend)
Benedetto 2020 et al: social democracy had three waves -- a worker parliamentary-revolution party; a cross-class socialist party; and a third wave party; vote share increased from 1917 to 1950 or so; stagnated from 1950 to 1980 or so; and declined from 1980 to 2016 or so
Causes of Decline of Social Democracy
Benedetto 2020 et al: social democratic parties that moved to the right recieved more votes; however, this effect occurred only among socially conservative social democratic parties in Central and Eastern Europe, and not for economic or social conservatism among social democratic parties in Western and Northern Europe
Benedetto 2020 et al: social democratic parties that moved to the right recieved more votes; however, this effect occurred only among socially conservative social democratic parties in Central and Eastern Europe, and not for economic or social conservatism among social democratic parties in Western and Northern Europe: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/rise-and-fall-of-social-democracy-19182017/4E96179FAF3D1C450072565C6B5DD103 https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/S0003055420000234 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/962886511131504681/benedetto2020.pdf
Second, regarding party positions, we find evidence that social democratic parties gained votes when they moved to the center (closer to the median voter) and lost votes when they moved to the left. We do not find an effect of the left right position of the main center right competitor on social democratic support. We replicated this analysis breaking the left right down into separate economic and social dimensions see Appendix Table A6 and we found that social democratic parties won more votes when they were more free market on the economic dimension but more conservative on the social dimension. These results challenge some existing research, for example, that there is little evidence of the link between parties positions and their electoral performance (e.g., Adams 2012) and Kitschelt s (1990) contention that social democrats should gain support as they become leftlibertarian. However, further investigation reveals that this result on the social dimension is mainly driven by parties in Central and Eastern Europe (after 1989), where several parties, in Romania and Slovakia for example, became socially conservative from the early 2000s and gained votes at the expense of more liberalcosmopolitan parties. In contrast, there is little evidence in Western Europe of a connection between social democratic parties positions on a social dimension and their electoral performance.
Causes of Rise of New Radical Left Parties
Krause 2019: lagged dependent variable OLS w/ party fixed effects: radical left parties in Europe did better when they adopted more-centrist economic positions but adopted more-leftist social positions
Krause 2019: lagged dependent variable OLS w/ party fixed effects: radical left parties in Europe did better when they adopted more-centrist economic positions but adopted more-leftist social positions: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402382.2019.1672019 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/01402382.2019.1672019 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983847171134738462/krause2019.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983847292618571867/krause2019appendix.pdf
To sum up, radical left parties electoral fortunes depend on different strategies regarding the economic and the non-economic conflict dimension. While they benefit from centripetal movements on economic-related issues, they suffer electorally if they pursue the same strategy on non-economic issues. These different effects can be explained if the perspective of issue competition is taken into account. Since RLPs have built a stable party-issue linkage in the economic realm, they benefit from moderating their stances on these issues with the goal of attracting social democratic voters. Concerning non-economic issues, they compete with other leftist and libertarian parties for a credible party-issue linkage in the voters minds. For that reason, they are punished at the polls if they promote moderate stances that fail to present clearly distinguishable programmatic alternatives. The effect of these strategic considerations varies partly with the positioning of mainstream left parties. In contrast to the widely assumed effect of accommodative mainstream party behaviour (Meguid 2008), more moderate positions of social democratic parties decrease the marginal effect of RLPs positional strategies on the economic dimension. If the mainstream left takes a noncentrist stance, they seem to legitimise leftist ideas on the economy and thus foster the positive effect of RLPs positional shifts. Hence, far-left challengers profit electorally if mainstream parties politicise their core issues and signal their relevance to the electorate. Considering the non-economic dimension, this effect could not be observed. Here, RLPs are punished electorally if they moderate their policy stance. This is true independent of the positional strategy put forward by mainstream parties. RLPs are thus best advised to promote an outsider profile on this issue dimension.
Krause 2019: radical left parties in Europe did better when the social-democratic party held more economically left positions
Precarity (Good Trend)
precarity and precariousness in developed countries
Trade Unions (Bad Trend)
trade unions are falling in all countries by about the same amount
trade unions are falling in all countries by about the same amount: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TUD
Nationalizations
list of nationalizations by country
Inequality (Good Trend)
worldwide inequality has risen, inter-country inequality has risen, but intra-country inequality has fallen
Poverty: Usa
America has seen an enormous decrease of poverty over time
Poverty: Worldwide: Income
for any definition of poverty, poverty has enormously declined over the past 40 years
^ this
occurred because median income rose, not because definitions changed
occurred because median income rose, not because definitions changed: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
^ this is not just China
^ this is not just China
Poverty: Worldwide: Concrete
the world has seen an enormous increase in water safety
the world has seen an enormous increase in water safety: https://ourworldindata.org/water-access
the world has seen an enormous increase in sanitation
the world has seen an enormous increase in sanitation: https://ourworldindata.org/sanitation
the world has seen an enormous increase in nourishment
the world has seen an enormous increase in nourishment: https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
the world has seen an enormous increase in literacy
the world has seen an enormous increase in literacy: https://ourworldindata.org/literacy
Summary
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: relative to violent mass movements, nonviolent mass movements are more likely to succeed (55% to 25%, 2.2x), more likely to partially succeed (25% vs 12.5%, 2x), and less likely to fail (20% vs 60%, .33x)
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: movement success is positively predicted by nonviolence and number of participants, negatively predicted by population size and violent repression, and insignificantly predicted by polity score (autocracy-democracy) and target capabilities (military strength)
Outcomes
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: nonviolent regime change movements were much likely to result in democracy after the movement ended
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: even when nonviolence fails, it often precedes transitions to democracy
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: even when nonviolence fails, it often precedes transitions to democracy: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/
Countries in which there were nonviolent campaigns were about 10 times likelier to transition to democracies within a five-year period compared to countries in which there were violent campaigns whether the campaigns succeeded or failed.
Nonviolent Better for Each Outcome Type
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: nonviolent mass resistance are more successful in every outcome category
Nonviolent Better Over Time
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: violent resistance have become less successful over time; nonviolent resistance have become more successful
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: mass resistance of all types has increased over time, but nonviolent mass resistance have grown more quickly than violent mass resistance
Nonviolent Better Against Strong States
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: violent revolutions work better against weaker states and worse against stronger states
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: violent revolutions work better against weaker states and worse against stronger states: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/ https://u1lib.org/book/3656840/d89e0d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713784950964355132/ChenowethAndStephan2011.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/755873495140794488/ChenowethAndStephan2011Dataset.pdf
We measure a country s capabilities using an oft-used measure of power in international relations scholarship, the Correlates of War s Composite Index of National Capabilities (CINC), which contains annual values for total population, urban population, iron and steel production, energy consumption, military personnel, and military expenditure. 3
Sources
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: description of how they obtained their sources
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: description of how they obtained their sources: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/ https://u1lib.org/book/3656840/d89e0d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713784950964355132/ChenowethAndStephan2011.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/755873495140794488/ChenowethAndStephan2011Dataset.pdf
The list of nonviolent campaigns was initially gathered from an extensive review of the literature on nonviolent conflict and social movements. Then these data were corroborated with multiple sources, including encyclopedias, case studies, and a comprehensive bibliography on nonviolent civil resistance by April Carter, Howard Clark, and Michael Randle (2006). Finally, we consulted with experts in the field, who suggested any remaining conflicts of note. The resulting list includes major campaigns that are primarily or entirely nonviolent. Campaigns where a significant amount of violence occurred are not considered nonviolent. Violent campaign data are derived primarily from Kristian Gleditsch s (2004) updates to the Correlates of War (COW) database on intrastate wars, Jason Lyall and Isaiah Wilson s (2009) database of insurgencies, and Kalev Sepp s (2005) list of major counterinsurgency operations. The COW data set requires all combatant groups to be armed and to have sustained a thousand battle deaths during the course of the conflict, suggesting that the conflict is necessarily violent.
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: resistance definition
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: resistance definition: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/ https://u1lib.org/book/3656840/d89e0d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713784950964355132/ChenowethAndStephan2011.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/755873495140794488/ChenowethAndStephan2011Dataset.pdf
The term resistance implies that the campaigns of interest are noninstitutional and generally confrontational in nature. In other words, these groups are using tactics that are outside the conventional political process (voting, interest-group organizing, or lobbying). Although institutional methods of political action often accompany nonviolent struggles, writes sociologist Kurt Schock, nonviolent action occurs outside the bounds of institutional political channels (2003, 705). 8
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: violence definition
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: violence definition: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/ https://u1lib.org/book/3656840/d89e0d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713784950964355132/ChenowethAndStephan2011.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/755873495140794488/ChenowethAndStephan2011Dataset.pdf
Method of exerting power that, like nonviolent resistance, operates outside normal political channels. While conventional militaries use violence to advance political goals, in this book we are concerned with the use of unconventional violent strategies used by nonstate actors. 11 These strategies are exhibited in three main categories of unconventional warfare: revolutions, plots (or coups d tat), and insurgencies, which differ according to the level of premeditated planning, protractedness, and means of overthrowing the existing order. 12 The weapons system available to an armed insurgent is very different from that of its nonviolent analogue. Violent tactics include bombings, shootings, kidnappings, physical sabotage such as the destruction of infrastructure, and other types of physical harm of people and property. However, the cases we examine do not include military coups, since we are primarily interested in substate actors that are not part of the state. Both violent and nonviolent campaigns seek to take power by force, though the method of applying force differs across the different resistance types.
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: success definition
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: success definition: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/ https://u1lib.org/book/3656840/d89e0d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713784950964355132/ChenowethAndStephan2011.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/755873495140794488/ChenowethAndStephan2011Dataset.pdf
Success and failure are also complex outcomes, about which much has been written (Baldwin 2000). For our study, to be considered a success a campaign had to meet two conditions: the full achievement of its stated goals (regime change, antioccupation, or secession) within a year of the peak of activities and a discernible effect on the outcome, such that the outcome was a direct result of the campaign s activities (Pape 1997). The second qualification is important because in some cases the desired outcome occurred mainly because of other conditions. The Greek resistance against the Nazi occupation, for example, is not coded as a full success even though the Nazis ultimately withdrew from Greece. Although effective in many respects, the Greek resistance alone cannot be credited with the ultimate outcome of the end of Nazi influence over Greece since the Nazi withdrawal was the result of the Allied victory rather than solely Greek resistance.
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: campaign definition
Chenoweth and Stephan 2011: campaign definition: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/ https://u1lib.org/book/3656840/d89e0d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/713784950964355132/ChenowethAndStephan2011.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/755873495140794488/ChenowethAndStephan2011Dataset.pdf
The term campaign is also somewhat contentious as a unit of analysis. Following Ackerman and Kruegler (1994, 10 11), we define a campaign as a series of observable, continual tactics in pursuit of a political objective. A campaign can last anywhere from days to years. Campaigns have discernible leadership and often have names, distinguishing them from random riots or spontaneous mass acts. 14 Usually campaigns have distinguishable beginning and end points, as well as discernible events throughout the campaign. In the case of resistance campaigns, beginning and end points are difficult to determine, as are the events throughout the campaign. In some cases, information on such events is readily available (e.g., Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1999); however, in most cases, it is not. Therefore, our characterization of the beginning and end dates of campaigns is based on consensus data and multiple sources. 15
Violent Protest Effects: Negative Political Outcomes
Wasow 2020: violent protests following MLK, Jr's, death significantly reduced Democratic vote share while nonviolent protest increased Democratic vote share; in a counterfactual world where no protests had occurred, Humphrey would have won the 1968 election in 75% of simulations (causality method: rainfall IV)
Violent Protest Effects: Negative Economic Outcomes
riot severity from 1960-70 significantly reduced median black family income growth from 1960-1980: a 'severe' riot was associated with a 12-22% reduction in black income growth (causality argument assisted via IV using rainfall data)
riot severity from 1960-70 significantly reduced median black family income growth from 1960-1980: a 'severe' riot was associated with a 12-22% reduction in black income growth (causality argument assisted via IV using rainfall data): https://www.nber.org/papers/w10243 https://www.nber.org/papers/w10243.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/751507065159024701/collins2004a.pdf
Table 2B reports results for similar regressions, run for the 1960 to 1980 period. The results suggest that the riots effects were not transitory. Cities that experienced riot-associated relative declines in income during the 1960s did not catch up during the 1970s. The coefficients in columns 1 to 6 are roughly similar in magnitude to those from table 2A, but the estimated riot-effect profile is somewhat steeper in the quadratic specifications of columns 1 to 3 (reaching an impact of -0.22 in column 1 at a riot index value of 0.3). Likewise, column 4 estimates an average severe riot city effect of about 12 percent (compared to 9 percent in table 2A), and again, the 2SLS coefficients increase in magnitude, as do the associated standard errors.
77 percent of the deaths in the base sample occurred in the severe riot cities. On the basis of the index, the severe riot cities are: Los Angeles, Detroit, Washington, Newark, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Mobile, and San Francisco.
Columns 3, 6,and 9 all include controls for the 1950-1960 trend in black family incomes for a reduced set of cities.
riot severity from 1960-70 significantly reduced black property values from 1960-1980: moving from no-riot to medium-severity-riot or medium to high severity correlated with a 7-24% reduction in black property values (causality argument assisted via IV using rainfall data)
riot severity from 1960-70 significantly reduced black property values from 1960-1980: moving from no-riot to medium-severity-riot or medium to high severity correlated with a 7-24% reduction in black property values (causality argument assisted via IV using rainfall data): https://www.nber.org/papers/w10493 https://www.nber.org/papers/w10493.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/751507066367246488/collins2004b.pdf
The 2SLS results are reported in columns 2, 3, 5, and 6 of table 4 for black housing values, along with comparable OLS specifications in columns 1 and 4. The first column is estimated by OLS and is very similar in specification and results to the first column of table 3A, suggesting that the replacement of the severity dummies (of table 3A) with the severity group variable (of table 4) is a reasonable simplification. In general, the 2SLS coefficients and their standard errors are larger in magnitude than in the OLS analogues. The 2SLS coefficients are uniformly negative, economically large, and remain near conventional levels of statistical significance. Given the relatively large standard errors, it is not surprising that Durbin-WuHausman tests cannot decisively reject the exogeneity of the severity variable, but the test statistics are large enough (p-values of 0.14 for 1960-70 and 0.27 for 1960-80) that we are reluctant to ignore the 2SLS suggestion that the true effects are larger than the OLS estimates.
Nonviolent Protest Effects: Positive Political Outcomes
Madestam et al 2013: instrumental variable (rainfall): a 0.1pp increase of the population participating in a Tea Party protest causally increased the 2010 Republican House vote share by 1.881pp
Madestam et al 2013: instrumental variable (rainfall): a 0.1pp increase of the population participating in a Tea Party protest causally increased the 2010 Republican House vote share by 1.881pp: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/128/4/1633/1849540 https://sci-hub.se/10.1093/qje/qjt021 causality argument assisted via IV using rainfall during protests
Pinckney 2019 preprint: instrumental variable (rainfall): a 0.1pp increase of the population participating in a Women's March event causally increased the 2018 Democratic House vote share by 1.893pp
Pinckney 2019 preprint: instrumental variable (rainfall): a 0.1pp increase of the population participating in a Women's March event causally increased the 2018 Democratic House vote share by 1.893pp: https://jonathanpinckney.com/ongoing-projects/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/990054539208065105/pinckney2019preprint.pdf
Larreboure and Gonzalez 2021 preprint: every additional 1pp of the population to participate in a Women's March event in 2017 caused an additional 1.1pp of the population to participate in 2018
Racial Acceptance Trends: Generally Quick-Ish Tolerance Increase From 40's-50's
among white people: black people should be segregated on buses: 51% in 1942, 37% in 1956
among white people: it would "make a difference to you" if a black person of comparable income and education moved into your neighborhood: 62% in 1942, 46% in 1956
among white people: black people are just as intelligent as white people: 42% in 1942, 44% in 1944, 53% in 1946, 78% in 1956
among white people: black people should go to the same schools: 30% in 1942, 49% in 1956
Freedom Rides: Unfavorable
May 4 1961: First "Freedom Rider" bus ride
May 4 1961: First "Freedom Rider" bus ride: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Riders
May 1961: 22% approve of freedom riders, 61% disapprove; 28% think sit-ins, freedom buses, and other demonstrations will help integration in the South, 57% think hurt
May 1961: 22% approve of freedom riders, 61% disapprove; 28% think sit-ins, freedom buses, and other demonstrations will help integration in the South, 57% think hurt: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/19/black-lives-matters-and-americas-long-history-of-resisting-civil-rights-protesters/
March on Washington: Unfavorable
August 1963: 23% were favorable towards the proposed March on Washington, 60% unfavorable
March on Washington:
Civil Rights Act: Favorable
October 1964: 58% approve, 31% disapprove of 1964 Civil Rights Act
November 1964: 68% prefer moderate enforcement of the 1964 civil rights act, 19% vigorous
Bloody Sunday: Favorable of Civil Rights Groups
7 March 1965: Bloody Sunday march
May 1965: after Selma, 21% of whites supported "the state of Alabama" and 46% supported the "civil rights groups"
October 1966: 85% of white people said demonstrations by black people had hurt the advancement of black rights, 15% said had helped
Engels Quotes: Yes, He Supported Labor Aristocracy Theory
Engels claims that the English proletariat is becoming bourgeois because England exploits the world
Engels claims that the English proletariat is becoming bourgeois because England exploits the world: http://web.archive.org/web/20021108051441/http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1858/letters/58_10_07.htm https://u1lib.org/book/5906983/2a9983 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/780138409008037898/mecw40.pdf
It seems to me, by the way, that there is in fact a connection between Jones new move, seen in conjunction with previous more or less successful attempts at such an alliance, and **the fact that the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. In the case of a nation which exploits the entire world this is, of course, justified to some extent.
Lenin Quotes: Yes, He Supported Labor Aristocracy Theory
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/sep/12.htm https://u1lib.org/book/5330090/9deff8
The historical conditions for the activities of the British Social-Democrats, whose leader Quelch was, are of a very particular kind. In the most advanced land of capitalism and political liberty, the British bourgeoisie (who as far back as the seventeenth century settled accounts with the absolute monarchy in a rather democratic way) managed in the nineteenth century to split the British working-class movement. In the middle of the nineteenth century Britain enjoyed an almost complete monopoly in the world market. Thanks to this monopoly the profits acquired by British capital were extraordinarily high, so that it was possible for some crumbs of these profits to be thrown to the aristocracy of labour, the skilled factory workers. This aristocracy of labour, which at that time earned tolerably good wages, boxed itself up in narrow, self-interested craft unions, and isolated itself from the mass of the proletariat, while in politics it supported the liberal bourgeoisie. And to this very day perhaps nowhere in the world are there so many liberals among the advanced workers as in Britain.
Strength and Scope
the Naxalites have been losing ground for decades
the Naxalite insurgency has been causing fewer and fewer deaths over time
the Naxalite insurgency has been causing fewer and fewer deaths over time: https://www.satp.org/datasheet-terrorist-attack/fatalities/india
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was born out of the 2000 democratization movement, set new standards for truth and reconciliation commissions, and provided the data and legitimacy for victims to pursue justice legally -- though it failed to completely fulfill that goal
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was born out of the 2000 democratization movement, set new standards for truth and reconciliation commissions, and provided the data and legitimacy for victims to pursue justice legally -- though it failed to completely fulfill that goal: https://www.worldcat.org/title/1029805537 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018679746437066782/soifer2019.pdf
During the democratic transition in 2000, the Peruvian human rights movement was particularly engaged in the advocacy for and the formation of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Following and studying the best practices of previous truth commissions in Chile and Argentina, but particularly in South Africa and Guatemala, the Peruvian CVR set new standards for this kind of project, which later infl uenced similar commissions in other parts of the world (Hayner 2011; Landman 2006). The CVR presented an alternative narrative of the confl ict that challenged the victorious version of the Fujimori regime and the military as defeating Sendero Luminoso and pacifying the country. It also presented strong evidence that portrayed Sendero Luminoso as the main perpetrator of deadly violence during the confl ict, in sharp contrast with other confl icts in Latin America. The CVR provided the human rights movements and the victims with important tools (legitimacy, data, forensic evidence, recommendations concerning reparations, etc.) to advance their claims for justice and reparations from the state and the judiciary system. However, as in the cases of other truth commissions (Hayner 2011; Bakiner 2016; Landman 2006), the role of the CVR is still a matter of controversy. Even if some public opinion polls have portrayed a relatively favorable image of the CVR, most people saw it as unable to directly contribute to a reconciliation process (Sulmont 2007; Barrantes 2007).
Collapse After 1992
the Shining Path was decimated by the 1992 arrest of Presidente Guzman and has caused far fewer attacks since then
Killing Estimates: High-Govt, Low-Sp Estimates
Rendon 2019a: using assumptions favorable to the Shining Path (extrapolating from the 9 of 59 provinces with enough data to do direct log-linear victim extrapolation), between 1980 and 2000 the Shining Path likely killed 18700 people, the Peruvian gov't 28000, and other actors 1300
Rendon 2019a: using assumptions favorable to the Shining Path (extrapolating from the 9 of 59 provinces with enough data to do direct log-linear victim extrapolation), between 1980 and 2000 the Shining Path likely killed 18700 people, the Peruvian gov't 28000, and other actors 1300: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053168018820375 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/2053168018820375 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/768134455725916200/rendon2019a.pdf
Rendon 2019b: todo reread xxx: response to Manrique-Vallier and Ball 2019
Critiquing the Above Estimates
Manrique-Vallier and Ball 2019: criticism 1: using updated and more-complete data, Rendon's estimates for SP victims are often *lower* than the number of *observed* deaths
Manrique-Vallier and Ball 2019: criticism 1: using updated and more-complete data, Rendon's estimates for SP victims are often *lower* than the number of *observed* deaths: https://hrdag.org/publications/reality-and-risk-a-refutation-of-s-rendons-analysis-of-the-peruvian-truth-and-reconciliation-commissions-conflict-mortality-study/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053168019835628 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/2053168019835628 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/768134462734336000/manrique-vallier2019.pdf
First, his estimates are inconsistent with observed data. By combining the data used by the TRC with data published by the Peruvian government between 2004 and 2006 (Ministerio de la Mujer y Desarrollo Social 2006a, 2006b), we see that Rend n s estimates for SLU are, in most strata and in the aggregate, lower than the number of observed SLU victims without considering victims who continue to be undocumented. This fact alone is enough to dismiss Rend n s conclusions. The TRC s estimates do not suffer from this problem.
Manrique-Vallier and Ball 2019: criticism 2: selecting strata with enough data for direct extrapolation skews the sample toward strata that enumerated high proportions of their victims
Manrique-Vallier and Ball 2019: criticism 3: the statistical estimation risk for Rendon's procedure is higher for most numbers of victims that are realistic (ie, above the number of observed victims in 2018)
Killing Estimates: Low-Govt, High-Sp Estimates
Manrique-Vallier Ball Sulmont 2019 (preprint): using Bayesian modelling to extrapolate from seven victim lists (including a new Census for Peace dataset), fatalities in the 1980-2000 violence perpetrated by the SP are 33700-34300, by the Peruvian gov't 22300-29400, by others 2100-2200
Manrique-Vallier Ball Sulmont 2019 (preprint): using Bayesian modelling to extrapolate from seven victim lists (including a new Census for Peace dataset), fatalities in the 1980-2000 violence perpetrated by the SP are 33700-34300, by the Peruvian gov't 22300-29400, by others 2100-2200: https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.04763 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.04763.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018659487860662362/manrique-vallier2019.pdf
The six datasets were independently created by CVR itself (henceforth CVR), the Peruvian Ombudsman Office (DP), the Red Cross (CICR), and three human rights organizations (COMISEDH, CEDAP and CNDDHH). They were combined through a laborious computer-assisted record linkage procedure by an 18 person team. The resulting combined dataset collectively documents 21,951 unique fatal victims. The final global estimate was 69,280 fatal victims, attributed to the Shining Path guerrilla (SLU: 31,331), state agents (EST: 20,458) and other perpetrators (OTR: 15,967).
For this study we used a version of the original Ball et al. (2003) data together with a new dataset. The new dataset (henceforth MIMDES) is the result of a project by the Peruvian government, called Censo por la Paz (Census for Peace). This project was aimed at creating an enumeration of the victims of the conflict independently from the CVR. While census is clearly a misnomer, this was an ambitious project which produced a list with a total of 20,468 uniquely identified victims (see Table 1). The data collection ran in several waves between 2001 and 2006, and the results were published in a series of documents with lists of nominalized victims.
Killing Estimates: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission [Comisi N De La Verdad Y Reconciliaci N, CVR]
Ball et al 2001, Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2001, Ball et al 2003
Truth and Reconciliation Commission: General Info
Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2001: Peru Digital Collection (Volumes 1-9 and Annex): see Anexo 2 Cu ntos Peruanos Murieron? Estimaci n Del Total De V ctimas Causadas Por El Conflicto Armado Interno
Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2001: Peru Digital Collection (Volumes 1-9 and Annex): see Anexo 2 Cu ntos Peruanos Murieron? Estimaci n Del Total De V ctimas Causadas Por El Conflicto Armado Interno: https://www.usip.org/publications/2001/07/truth-commission-peru-01 http://web.archive.org/web/20220911185218/https://www.usip.org/publications/2001/07/truth-commission-peru-01
Volume 1 Chapter 3
Amnesty International 2004: review of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: "Amnesty International includes a series of its own recommendations to the Peruvian authorities as well as supporting the extensive recommendations made by the Commission"
Amnesty International 2004: review of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: "Amnesty International includes a series of its own recommendations to the Peruvian authorities as well as supporting the extensive recommendations made by the Commission": https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr46/003/2004/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/92000/amr460032004en.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018604243357282324/ai2004.pdf
Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2001: Volume 8: people who spoke Quecha as their mother tongue made up about 80% of victims of the Shining Path ("PCP-SL"), 80% Peruvian gov't ("Agentes del Estado"), 80% community defense groups (Comit s de Autodefensa, CADS), 30% MRTA
Shining Path Frequently Executed of Elected Officials
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the Shining Path killed more local elected officials or social organization leaders (1682, TRC) than the number of military/police victims (1671, TRC)
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the Shining Path killed more local elected officials or social organization leaders (1682, TRC) than the number of military/police victims (1671, TRC): https://www.worldcat.org/title/1029805537 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018679746437066782/soifer2019.pdf
The Peruvian Truth Commission has estimated that 23 percent of the victims killed by the Shining Path were local elected authorities and leaders of social organizations. In fact, according to the CVR database, the number of civil local authorities (majors, councilmen, judges, public officials, etc.) and social organization leaders killed by Sendero Luminoso is higher than the number of military or police casualties caused by that organization (1,682 vs. 1,671) (CVR 2003a). Those fatalities represent a loss of social and political capital that severely affected political parties (from both the left and right wings of the political spectrum) as well as social organizations from peasant and indigenous communities. This kind of violence also had a deterrence effect, preventing people from engaging in political or social mobilization and provoking lasting effects within the Peruvian party system and civil society organizations (see chapters 7, 8, and 9).
Shining Path Violence Legitimized the Fujimori Regime's Seizure of Power in 1992
Soifer and Vergara 2019: Shining Path violence was so bad that opinion polls of Fujimori showed him *gaining* supported after his self-coup, despite implementing shock therapy policies
Soifer and Vergara 2019: Shining Path violence was so bad that opinion polls of Fujimori showed him *gaining* supported after his self-coup, despite implementing shock therapy policies: https://www.worldcat.org/title/1029805537 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018679746437066782/soifer2019.pdf
Whatever the logic of power that led to the autogolpe decision, the public was clearly prepared to support it, as Fujimori intuited from the way in which his attacks on Congress and the political establishment played in public opinion. Following the autogolpe, opinion polls showed Fujimori had most Peruvians behind his authoritarian measures. The support was neither capricious nor unreasonable; it was rooted in profound and widespread fear (Schulte-Bockholt 2013, 97). The fear was not limited to the business community and the armed forces. It extended to virtually the entire middle class as well as working- class and poor rural communities, which felt the brunt of the confl ict. The pervasive sense of fear paralyzed social movements and made it hard to articulate opposition to Fujimori (Burt 2009b, 315 349).
Peruvian Gov't Conducted Genocide via Sterilization of Indigenous People
Carranza Ko 2022: the Peruvian gov't sterilized state thousands of indigenous people in order to control their bodies, in what clearly constitutes genocide
Carranza Ko 2022: the Peruvian gov't sterilized state thousands of indigenous people in order to control their bodies, in what clearly constitutes genocide: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol14/iss2/8/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018669619260706917/ko2020.pdf
Peruvian Gov't Enabled Mass Sexual Violence Against Imprisoned People
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the Peruvian gov't perpetrated 83% of the sexual violence recorded in the conflict
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the Peruvian gov't perpetrated 83% of the sexual violence recorded in the conflict: https://www.worldcat.org/title/1029805537 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018679746437066782/soifer2019.pdf
Insurgent and state violence also displayed wide variation in regard to particular forms of victimization: sexual violence, for example, was mostly conducted by state agents, who were recorded as responsible for 83 percent of the reported cases by the Peruvian Truth Commission, while 11 percent were attributed to Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA (E. Wood 2008; CVR 2003a, 6:201 202).15 Using a data set on state-perpetrated sexual violence in Guatemala and Peru compiled from the Truth Commission documents and nongovernmental human rights organizations, Leiby (2009) fi nds that in contrast to Guatemala, where sexual violence was most often perpetrated during sweeps and massacres, most victims of state sexual violence in Peru were violated while in detention (Leiby 2009, 454 455). At the same time, she states that while the Shining Path adherents committed sexual violence much less often than state personnel (still outstripping the MRTA), many of Sendero s actions were among the most brutal attacks (Leiby 2009, 466). Chapter 6 in this volume provides a more detailed discussion of this particular instantiation of violence.
Shining Path: Mass Killings of Indigenous
Carranza Ko 2022: the Shining Path killed or disappeared over 5,000 indigenous people from the Amazon region of Peru
Pu o 2005
Soifer and Vergara 2019: insurgents captured from the Shining Path and the MRTA were 29 and 19 percent indigenous, respectively; among 183 prisoners convicted of terrorism, 35.5% had had some university education (roughly 3x higher than the population as a whole)
Soifer and Vergara 2019: insurgents captured from the Shining Path and the MRTA were 29 and 19 percent indigenous, respectively; among 183 prisoners convicted of terrorism, 35.5% had had some university education (roughly 3x higher than the population as a whole): https://www.worldcat.org/title/1029805537 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018679746437066782/soifer2019.pdf
Soifer and Vergara 2019: between 600 and 10000 women were involuntarily sterilized by the Peruvian gov't
Internal Conflict Displaced Hundreds of Thousands
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the 1980-2000 internal violence displaced approximately 600k people (2.7% of Peru's population), the vast majority of which resettled from countrysides to cities
Soifer and Vergara 2019: the 1980-2000 internal violence displaced approximately 600k people (2.7% of Peru's population), the vast majority of which resettled from countrysides to cities: https://www.worldcat.org/title/1029805537 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018679746437066782/soifer2019.pdf
Forced displacement was probably one of the most important demographic consequences of the civil war in Peru. It has been estimated that 600,000 people approximately 2.7 percent of the national population, according to the 1993 census were forced to leave their residences during the confl ict in Peru (Diez Hurtado 2003). Other confl icts in the Latin American region have also forced huge numbers of displaced people: 6 million in Colombia up to 2014, from a total population of 48.9 million (12 percent of the population) (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2014); between 500,000 and 1.5 million in Guatemala from a total population of 10 million during the confl ict years there (Comisi n de Esclarecimiento Hist rico 1999, 3:211). In Peru, as in Colombia, forced displacement was mostly internal. In contrast, for Guatemala it has been estimated that 100,000 people became refugees in neighboring countries (W. Wood 1994, 610).
Summary
Can you change political views from above through imposing policy shifts? Causal evidence from the USA suggests not; mass political views must change from below.
Can you change political views from above through imposing policy shifts? Causal evidence from the USA suggests not; mass political views must change from below.
Imposition of Gay Marriage by the Supreme Court Increased Anti-Gay Prejudice in States Which Did Not Have Legal Gay Marriage
Ofosua et al 2018: linear mixed effects: state passage of gay marriage laws decreased anti-gay prejudice while federal imposition increased anti-gay prejudice
Ofosua et al 2018: linear mixed effects: state passage of gay marriage laws decreased anti-gay prejudice while federal imposition increased anti-gay prejudice: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/race-in-new-world/201904/when-laws-change-minds https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/18/8846.full.pdf http://erichehman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/1806000116.full_.pdf
Before legalization, antigay bias was decreasing both in states that ultimately passed same-sex marriage legislation (B = 0.0051, SE = 0.0004, P < 0.001) and in those that did not (B = 0.0077, SE = 0.0005, P < 0.001). For the states passing same-sex marriage at the state level, the demonstrated pattern was identical to that evident in models 1 3 (Fig. 3). Bias decreased at roughly double the rate over time following legalization (B = 0.0112, SE = 0.0006, P < 0.001). In sharp contrast, for the 15 states that did not pass same-sex marriage legalization locally, antigay bias increased over time following legalization (B = 0.0215, SE = 0.0065, P < 0.001).
In states that did not pass same-sex marriage legalization locally, we find a reactive or backlash effect (27) such that federal legalization was associated with increased antigay bias over time, despite the decreasing trend in bias in these states before federal legalization. The specific factors driving this effect cannot be addressed by the present data. One possibility is that, even though attitudes were improving, a tipping point of local support had not yet been reached for the majority to accept the federal ruling. Research at the individual level suggests that the attention given the federal decision may have sharpened some respondents sense of symbolic threat to their lifestyle and values (43), and this sense of threat could have exacerbated antigay biases among those individuals.
Police Affirmative Action May Have Caused White Flight
Grumbach and Aneja 2021 preprint: differences-in-differences: after black police officers were hired through affirmative action (to achieve parity after segregation) in the 1970's and 1980's, the Democratic vote of those police jurisdictions did not decrease but white people left those counties, consistent with white flight
Grumbach and Aneja 2021 preprint: differences-in-differences: after black police officers were hired through affirmative action (to achieve parity after segregation) in the 1970's and 1980's, the Democratic vote of those police jurisdictions did not decrease but white people left those counties, consistent with white flight: https://sites.google.com/view/jakegrumbach/working-papers https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/983851351396200468/grumbach2021.pdf
Summary
Marx and Engels never accepted reformism, but they shifted towards accepting it over time, particularly as they saw the successes of universal suffrage and the German Social Democratic Party.
Marx and Engels never accepted reformism, but they shifted towards accepting it over time, particularly as they saw the successes of universal suffrage and the German Social Democratic Party.
Researcher Opinions
Hollander 2010: Marx and Engels increasingly supported the reformist route to socialism over time
Hollander 2010: Marx and Engels increasingly supported the reformist route to socialism over time: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41802465 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/41802465 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865759002133397544/hollander2010.pdf
First, the 1895 Introduction does not itself signify a major change in Engels' attitude considering his recognition, not late in the day but over several decades, of political concessions by the British ruling class in particular, in effect its surrender to the proletariat regarding the suffrage. Secondly, since from the 1840s Marx noted and applauded the potential of the 'Social Democratic' route, at least under the appropriate conditions - including national character - Engels was scarcely deviating from the master and certainly not belatedly so. Indeed, some of Marx's affirmations are quite as strong as those of Engels in 1895.
Hollander 2010: however, Marx and Engels held that parliamentary victory should be followed by pursuing Communist goals, preparing a dictatorship of the proletariat in law and force, and therefore preventing the removal of the party from government
Hollander 2010: however, Marx and Engels held that parliamentary victory should be followed by pursuing Communist goals, preparing a dictatorship of the proletariat in law and force, and therefore preventing the removal of the party from government: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41802465 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/41802465 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865759002133397544/hollander2010.pdf
[T]here are certainly limits to Engels' revisionism. Thus it is misleading to speak of his having in 1895 'fully accepted the democratic viewpoint', since the parliamentary route was only the most effective means - and only under certain conditions - of assuring a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. And most important, the immediate goal of a parliamentary majority was to establish, or at least set the foundations for, a classless communist system, on which matter there was no compromise; thus Engels would have found unacceptable a Parliamentary system generating a working-class majority unwilling to carry out a Communist program - Engels' support for Universal Suffrage as means to achieve proletarian power presupposes that elected workers tow the party line - or a working-class electorate choosing to replace the party at the polls. Such outcomes would render the 'dictatorship' a contradiction in terms. [...] Furthermore, insofar as our authors justified the use of force to protect the 'dictatorship' once in place - and however achieved - from counter-revolution, there remains some consolation for those traditionalists who view them as red in tooth and claw.
Engels Quotes: Reform Is Impossible Even to Acheive Universal Suffrage
Engels 1842: "the middle class will never renounce its occupation of the House of Commons by agreeing to universal suffrage"
Engels 1842: "the middle class will never renounce its occupation of the House of Commons by agreeing to universal suffrage": https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1842/12/08.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484909/e76c23 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865761516204457994/mecw2.pdf
And if a revolution in England is impossible, as they at least assert, they have indeed little to fear for their rule. If Chartism has the patience to wait until it has won a majority in the House of Commons, it will have to go on for many a year to come holding meetings and demanding the six points of the People s Charter [180]; the middle class will never renounce its occupation of the House of Commons by agreeing to universal suffrage, since it would immediately be outvoted by the huge number of the unpropertied as the inevitable consequence of giving way on this point. Therefore Chartism has not yet been able to gain any hold among educated people in England and will remain unable to do so for some time yet.
Engels 1842: "in England s present condition, legal progress and universal suffrage would inevitably result in a revolution"
Engels 1842: "in England s present condition, legal progress and universal suffrage would inevitably result in a revolution": https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1842/12/08.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484909/e76c23 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865761516204457994/mecw2.pdf
Moreover, irrespective of political interests, the middle class can only be Whig or Tory, never Chartist. Its principle is the preservation of the status quo; in England s present condition, legal progress and universal suffrage would inevitably result in a revolution. It is therefore quite natural that the practical Englishman, for whom politics is a matter of arithmetic or even a commercial affair, pays no attention at all to the power of Chartism, which is quietly growing to formidable proportions, since it cannot be expressed in numbers, except perhaps in such as, in relation to the government and Parliament, would be noughts after the decimal point. But there are things which are beyond numerical calculation, and it is here that the super-cleverness of English Whiggery and Toryism will suffer a debacle, when the time comes.
Engels Quotes: Communist Power May Be Achieved Either Peacefully or Violently
Engels 1847: peaceful achievement of socialism is desirable, but unlikely
Engels 1847: peaceful achievement of socialism is desirable, but unlikely: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
Question 16: **Will the peaceful abolition of private property be possible? It would be desirable if this could happen, and the communists would certainly be the last to oppose it.** Answer: Communists know only too well that all conspiracies are not only useless, but even harmful. They know all too well that revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes. But they also see that the development of the proletariat in nearly all civilized countries has been violently suppressed, and that in this way the opponents of communism have been working toward a revolution with all their strength. If the oppressed proletariat is finally driven to revolution, then we communists will defend the interests of the proletarians with deeds as we now defend them with words.
Engels 1847: description of "democratic socialism" as modern "social democrats" (not abolishing capitalism, merely ensuring that capitalism is humane)
Engels 1847: description of "democratic socialism" as modern "social democrats" (not abolishing capitalism, merely ensuring that capitalism is humane): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484914/d8029d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886729538795601940/mecw6.pdf
Question 24: How do communists differ from socialists? Answer: The so-called socialists are divided into three categories. [....] Finally, the third category consists of democratic socialists who favor some of the same measures the communists advocate, as described in Question 18, not as part of the transition to communism, however, but as measures which they believe will be sufficient to abolish the misery and evils of present-day society. These democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat. It follows that, in moments of action, the communists will have to come to an understanding with these democratic socialists, and in general to follow as far as possible a common policy with them provided that these socialists do not enter into the service of the ruling bourgeoisie and attack the communists. It is clear that this form of co-operation in action does not exclude the discussion of differences.
Marx Quote: Reform Is Possible in Certain Institutions
Marx 1872: in certain countries with certain institutions, workers can attain the rule of labor by peaceful means
Marx 1872: in certain countries with certain institutions, workers can attain the rule of labor by peaceful means: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/09/08.htm
[T]he institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and **we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means.** This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor. [....] Do they then forget that America will be the workers' continent par excellence, that half a million men -- workers -- emigrate there yearly, and that on such soil, where the worker dominates, the International is bound to strike strong roots?
Marx Quote: The State of the Future
Marx 1875
Marx 1875: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word 'people' with the word 'state'. Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Now the program does not deal with this nor with the future state of communist society. Its political demands contain nothing beyond the old democratic litany familiar to all: universal suffrage, direct legislation, popular rights, a people's militia, etc. They are a mere echo of the bourgeois People's party, of the League of Peace and Freedom. They are all demands which, insofar as they are not exaggerated in fantastic presentation, have already been realized. Only the state to which they belong does not lie within the borders of the German Empire, but in Switzerland, the United States, etc. This sort of "state of the future" is a present-day state, although existing outside the "framework" of the German Empire.
Marx 1875: taxes are the basis of government machinery and nothing else; income taxes presuppose multiple social classes
Marx 1875: taxes are the basis of government machinery and nothing else; income taxes presuppose multiple social classes: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
That, in fact, by the word "state" is meant the government machine, or the state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society through division of labor, is shown by the words "the German Workers' party demands as the economic basis of the state: a single progressive income tax", etc. Taxes are the economic basis of the government machinery and of nothing else. In the state of the future, existing in Switzerland, this demand has been pretty well fulfilled. Income tax presupposes various sources of income of the various social classes, and hence capitalist society. It is, therefore, nothing remarkable that the Liverpool financial reformers bourgeois headed by Gladstone's brother are putting forward the same demand as the program.
Marx Story: Revolutionary Phrase-Mongering
Marx 1880: rejecting minimum demands achievable within capitalism in favor of revolution is nothing but "revolutionary phrase-mongering"
Marx 1880: rejecting minimum demands achievable within capitalism in favor of revolution is nothing but "revolutionary phrase-mongering": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
Whereas Marx saw this as a practical means of agitation around demands that were achievable within the framework of capitalism, Guesde took a very different view: Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical programme of struggle, but simply ... as bait with which to lure the workers from Radicalism. The rejection of these reforms would, Guesde believed, free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers 89. [4] Accusing Guesde and Lafargue of revolutionary phrase-mongering and of denying the value of reformist struggles, Marx made his famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste ( what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist ).[5]
check citation 9 and 41
Marx 1880: Marx called his son in law a "revolutionary phrase-monger" for not valuing reforms (as a means to organize revolution) enough
Marx 1880: Marx called his son in law a "revolutionary phrase-monger" for not valuing reforms (as a means to organize revolution) enough: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Origins_of_the_French_Labor_Movement/quW3ZVn8WGgC https://archive.org/details/originsoffrenchl0000moss/page/107/mode/2up
The minimum electoral program [of le Proletaire] was designed solely as a "means of organization and struggle." It consisted of a series of minimum demands that Guesde drew from labor and Radical movements[.] [....] Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoise, Guesde regarded them not as a practical program of struggle, but simply as a means of agitation, as a bait with which to lure the workers away from Radicalism. Since in his view these reforms were -- with the exception of a minimum wage -- compatible with the capitalist system, their rejection woudl free the proletariat "of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers' [17]89 [date of anti-monarchist French revolution]."10
"Though Guesde and Lafargue represented the rudiments of Marxism in France, they were severely chastised by Marx for their practical errors, for indulging in "revolutionary phraseology," denying the revolutionary value of reformist struggles and ignoring the progressive role of Radicalism. If this was Marxism, Marx told his "Bakunist" son-in-law [Lafargue], he was not a Marxist.
^ context for the above: Marx was rejecting the "Marxism" of his son-in-law Lafargue and Guesde
^ context for the above: Marx was rejecting the "Marxism" of his son-in-law Lafargue and Guesde: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
After the programme was agreed, however, a clash arose between Marx and his French supporters arose over the purpose of the minimum section. Whereas Marx saw this as a practical means of agitation around demands that were achievable within the framework of capitalism, Guesde took a very different view: Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical programme of struggle, but simply ... as bait with which to lure the workers from Radicalism. The rejection of these reforms would, Guesde believed, free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers 89. [4] Accusing Guesde and Lafargue of revolutionary phrase-mongering and of denying the value of reformist struggles, Marx made his famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste ( what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist ). [5]
^ context for the above: Marx was rejecting the "Marxism" of his son-in-law Lafargue and Guesde
^ context for the above: Marx was rejecting the "Marxism" of his son-in-law Lafargue and Guesde: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Origins_of_the_French_Labor_Movement/quW3ZVn8WGgC https://archive.org/details/originsoffrenchl0000moss/page/107/mode/2up
Lafargue foresaw socialism arising from the growth of heavy industry and a disciplined and concentrated industrial proletariat.5 Vastly exaggerating the degree of concentration in French industry, he predicted an imminent revolution that would be ignited by economic or political crisis. If socialism was to arise from the industrial wroking class, it would be necessary to abandon skilled workers with their federalist traditions. Guesdists began to treat them as a petty bourgeois element, infected with the spirit of individualism and Proudhonism, whose elite status and federalist ideology were condemned by industrial development.6
Luxemburg Quotes: Reform vs Revolution Is Not a Binary Choice
Luxemburg 1899: it is not reform *or* revolution but reform *and* revolution; struggling for reforms organizes the masses to allow a social revolution
Luxemburg 1899: it is not reform *or* revolution but reform *and* revolution; struggling for reforms organizes the masses to allow a social revolution: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/intro.htm https://swp.org.uk/pamphlets/reform-or-revolution/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792776209028612126/luxemburg1899.pdf
At first view the title of this work may be found surprising. Can social democracy be against reforms? Can we counterpose social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, our final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, is for social democracy indissolubly tied to its final goal. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its goal.
Engels Quote: Free Trade
Engels on Marx's views on free trade
Engels on Marx's views on free trade: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/free-trade/
From this point of view, 40 years ago Marx pronounced, in principle, in favor of Free Trade as the more progressive plan, and therefore the plan which would soonest bring capitalist society to that deadlock. But if Marx declared in favor of Free Trade on that ground, is that not a reason for every supporter of the present order of society to declare against Free Trade? If Free Trade is stated to be revolutionary, must not all good citizens vote for Protection as a conservative plan? If a country nowadays accepts Free Trade, it will certainly not do so to please the socialists. It will do so because Free trade has become a necessity for the industrial capitalists. But if it should reject Free Trade and stick to Protection, in order to cheat the socialists out of the expected social catastrophe, that will not hurt the prospects of socialism in the least. Protection is a plan for artificially manufacturing manufacturers, and therefore also a plan for artificially manufacturing wage laborers. You cannot breed the one without breeding the other.
Debs Quote
Debs 1902 speech "No Masters, No Slaves": "the ballot is the weapon"
Debs 1902 speech "No Masters, No Slaves": "the ballot is the weapon": https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228038438 https://u1lib.org/book/11843181/155408 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/975130994518667264/davenport1897.pdf
I appeal to you workingmen to stand together today. Resolve that you will be true to your class. Then, in the spirit of Andrew Jackson, accept the consequences of your act. Emphasize every industrial conflict by political action. The ballot is the weapon. It was found after a thousand years of blood and tears. It is criminal not to make use of it, or, worse still, to use it to forge our fetters more securely.
Engels Was No Lover of Peace
Engels 1895: it's "disgraceful" that extracts of my "Introduction to the French Revolution" made me appear as "a peaceful worshipper of legality at any price", a view which should be "wiped out"
Engels 1895: it's "disgraceful" that extracts of my "Introduction to the French Revolution" made me appear as "a peaceful worshipper of legality at any price", a view which should be "wiped out": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/letters/95_04_01.htm https://archive.ph/wip/rEJO4
To my astonishment I see in Votw rts! today an extract from my Introduction, printed without my prior knowledge and trimmed in such a fashion that I appear as a peaceful worshipper of legality at any price. So much the better that the whole thing is to appear now in the Neue Zeit so that this disgraceful impression will be wiped out. I shall give Liebknecht a good piece of my mind on that score and also, no matter who they are, to those who gave him the opportunity to misrepresent my opinion without even telling me a word about it...
Socialist Party Is Unstoppable Power
Engels 1892: today, bourgeois electeds "have to regard" the socialist party "as the avant-garde of the power to come"
Engels 1892: today, bourgeois electeds "have to regard" the socialist party "as the avant-garde of the power to come": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1892/01/socialism-germany.htm
In 1867 the bourgeois deputies were able to regard their socialist colleagues as strange creatures that had arrived from another planet; today, whether they like it or not, they have to regard them as the avant-garde of the power to come. The socialist party which overthrew Bismarck, the party which after eleven years of struggle has broken the Anti-Socialist Law; the socialist party, which like a rising tide overflows all the dikes, invading towns and countryside, even in the most reactionary Vendees this party today has reached the point where it is possible to determine the date when it will come to power almost by mathematical calculation.
Engels 1892: while socialists have electoral-legal advantages, they shouldn't fire first, but await bourgeois counter-revolutionary violence, "you shoot first, messiers les bourgeois", for now, "it is not we who are being destroyed by legality", and counter-revolutionary violence can only slow the victory of socialism
Engels 1892: while socialists have electoral-legal advantages, they shouldn't fire first, but await bourgeois counter-revolutionary violence, "you shoot first, messiers les bourgeois", for now, "it is not we who are being destroyed by legality", and counter-revolutionary violence can only slow the victory of socialism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1892/01/socialism-germany.htm
How many times have the bourgeois called on us to renounce the use of revolutionary means for ever, to remain within the law, now that the exceptional law has been dropped and one law has been re-established for all, including the socialists? Unfortunately we are not in a position to oblige messieurs les bourgeois. Be that as it may, for the time being it is not we who are being destroyed by legality. It is working so well for us that we would be mad to spurn it as long as the situation lasts. It remains to be seen whether it will be the bourgeois and their government who will be the first to turn their back on the law in order to crush us by violence. That is what we shall be waiting for. You shoot first, messieurs les bourgeois. No doubt they will be the first ones to fire. One fine day the German bourgeois and their government, tired of standing with their arms folded, witnessing the ever increasing advances of socialism, will resort to illegality and violence. To what avail? With force it is possible to crush a small sect, at least in a restricted space but there is no force in the world which can wipe out a party of two million men spread out over the entire surface-area of a large empire. Counter-revolutionary violence will be able to slow down the victory of socialism by a few years; but only in order to make it all the more complete when it comes.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
And if then, as shown in the third article of Marx, in the spring of 1850 developments had concentrated the real ruling power in the bourgeois republic that had emanated from the social revolution of 1848 in the hands of the big bourgeoisie, which, on top of all, entertained monarchistic desires, while all other social classes, peasants as well as petty bourgeoisie, had been grouped about the proletariat in such manner that in case and after a common victory not the bourgeoisie but the proletariat made wary by experience would become the decisive factor-in such case were not the chances favorable for a reversion of the revolution of the minority into the revolution of the majority? History has proved us wrong and all others who thought similarly. It has made clear that the status of economic development on the Continent was then by no means ripe for the abolition of capitalist production; it has proved this by the economic revolution which, since 1848, has affected the entire Continent and has introduced large industry in France, Austria, Hungary. Poland, and, more recently, in Russia, and has made of Germany an industrial country of the first rank-all this upon a capitalist basis which, reckoning from 1848, implies great expansive capacity.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
We had then [in 1848] the masses, divided and differentiated according to locality and nationality, undeveloped, held together only by a sense of common suffering, aimlessly driven hither and thither between enthusiasm and despair; we have today the one great international army of Socialists, advancing irresistibly, daily growing in numbers, organization, discipline, discernment and certainty of victory. And if this powerful army of the proletariat has not yet reached the goal, if, far from winning the victory by one fell blow, it must gradually proceed by hard, tenacious struggle from position to position, it proved once for all how impossible it was in 1848 to bring about the social transformation by a sheer coup de main.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
[T]he astonishing growth of the [German Social Democratic ]party lies in incontestable figures open before all the world. 1871: 102,000; 1874: 352,000; 1877: 493,000 Social Democratic votes. Then came the high governmental acknowledgment of this progress in the shape of the anti-Socialist law. For the moment, the party was dispersed, the vote sank to 312,000 in 1881. But that was soon overcome, and now, under pressure of the exceptional law, without a press, without a legal organization, without the right of assembly, began the most rapid growth in spite of all. 1884: 550,000; 1887: 763,000; 1890: 1,427,000 votes. Then the hand of the State was lamed. The anti-Socialist law vanished, the Socialist vote rose to 1,787,000, more than a quarter of the entire vote cast. The Government and the ruling classes had exhausted all their means-uselessly, purposelessly, unsuccessfully. The most palpable proofs of their own impotence which the authorities, from night watchman to chancellor, had been made to swallow-and from the despised workers, at that-these proofs could be counted by the million. The State had got to the end of its resources, the workers were but at the beginning of theirs. The German workers had, moreover, rendered to their cause a second great service, besides the first of their mere existence as the strongest, the best disciplined and the most rapidly growing Socialist party; they had furnished their comrades in all countries with a new and one of the sharpest weapons, by showing them how to utilize the general franchise.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
Even if the general franchise had offered no other advantage than to permit us to count our numbers once every three years;-that through the regularly demonstrated, unexpectedly rapid growth of the vote, it increased the certainty of victory on the part of the workers in the same measure that it increased the panic of the foe, and thereby became our best means of propaganda; that it informed us, accurately, of our own strength as well as of that of all opposing parties, and gave us thereby a gauge for proportioning our action such as cannot be duplicated, restrained us from untimely hesitation as well as from untimely daring-if that were the sole gain derived from the general franchise, it would be more than enough.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
But it has done much more. During the election agitation, it furnished us a means, such as there is no other, of getting in touch with the masses of the people that are still far removed from us, of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and, in addition, it made accessible to our representatives in the Reichstag a tribune from which they could speak to our opponents in Parliament, as well as to the masses without, with much greater authority and freedom than could be done in the press and at meetings. Of what use was the anti-Socialist law to the Government and to the bourgeoisie if the election agitation and the Socialist speeches in the Reichstag constantly broke through it?
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
With this successful utilization of the general franchise, an entirely new method of the proletarian struggle had come into being and had quickly been built up. It was found that the State institutions, wherein the rule of the bourgeoisie is organized, did furnish further opportunities by means of which the working class can oppose these same institutions. We participated in the elections to the Diets in the Federal States, Municipal Councillors, Industrial Courts; in short, we contested with the bourgeoisie every post in the filling of which a sufficiently large part of the proletariat had a say. And so it came about that bourgeoisie and Government feared far more the legal than the illegal action of the workers party, more the successes of the elections than those of rebellion.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
Already in 1849 the chances of success were rather poor. Everywhere had the bourgeoisie gone over to the side of the governments, culture and possessions greeted and feted the military marching out against the insurrections. The barricade had lost its charm; the soldier saw behind it no longer the people, but rebels, agitators, plunderers, dividers, the dregs of society; the officer had in the course of time become familiar with the tactical forms of the street battle; no longer did he march in direct line and without cover upon the improvised breastworks, but outflanked them through gardens, courts and houses; and that succeeded now with some skill in nine cases out of ten.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
On the side of the insurgents, however, all the conditions have become worse. An uprising wherewith all layers of the population sympathize will hardly come again; in the class struggle the middle layers will hardly ever group themselves around the proletariat so fully that the party of reaction, gathering around the bourgeoisie, will be almost eclipsed by comparison. The people will for that reason always appear divided, and thus a powerful lever, so effective in 1848, will be missing.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
Since then, much more has been changed, all in favor of the military. If the cities have become larger, so have the armies. Paris and Berlin, since 1848, have quadrupled, but their garrisons have grown more than that. These garrisons, by means of the railroads, may be doubled inside of twenty-four hours, and in forty-eight hours may swell to gigantic armies. The armament of these enormously augmented troops has become incomparably more effective. In 1848 the smoothbore, muzzle-loaded percussion rifle, today the small-caliber, magazine breech loader, shooting four times as far, ten times as accurately and ten times as quickly as the former. At that time the solid projectiles and case shot of the artillery with relatively weak effect, today the percussion shell, one of which suffices to shatter the best barricade. Then the pickaxe of the pioneer to break through the fire walls, today the dynamite cartridge.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
Even if on the side of the insurrection there be more trained soldiers, it will become more difficult to arm them. The hunting and sporting rifles of the warehouses-even if the police has not rendered them useless by the removal of a part of the mechanism-are no match for the magazine rifle of the soldier even at close quarters. Up to 1848 one could make his own ammunition out of powder and lead, today the cartridge for each rifle model varies, being similar only in that all of them are the product of large industry and not to be extemporized, which renders most rifles useless unless one has the special ammunition made for them. And, finally, the newly-built quarters of the large cities, erected since 1848, have been laid out in long, straight and wide streets as though made to order for the effective use of the new cannon and rifles. The revolutionary, who would himself select the new working class districts in the north and east of Berlin for a barricade battle, would have to be a lunatic.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
Does the reader now understand why the ruling classes, by hook or by crook, would get us where the rifle pops and the sabre slashes? Why, today, do they charge us with cowardice because we will not, without further ado, get down into the street where we are sure of our defeat in advance? Why are we so persistently importuned to play the role of cannon fodder?
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
We are not quite so silly. They might as well ask of their enemies in the next war to face them in the line formation of Frederick II, or in the columns of whole divisions a la Wagram and Waterloo, and with the old flint-and-pan gun in hand, at that. The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required, and it is this work that we are now performing with results that drive our enemies to despair.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
In France, where the soil has been raked up for more than a hundred years by revolution after revolution, where not a single party exists that has not done its part in conspiracies, insurrections and in all other revolutionary actions; in France, where because thereof the army is by no means certain for the government, and where, generally speaking, the conditions for an insurrectionary coup de main are much more favorable than in Germany-even in France the Socialists realize more and more that no durable success is possible unless they win over in advance the great mass of the people, which, in this case, means the peasants. The slow work of propaganda and parliamentary activity are here also recognized as the next task of the party. Success did not fail to come.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
Of course, our comrades abroad have not abandoned the right to revolution. The right to revolution is, in the last analysis, the only real historic right upon which all modern States rest without exception, including even Mecklenburg where the revolution of the nobility was terminated in 1755 through the inheritance agreement, the glorious confirmation of feudalism valid this very day. The right to revolution is so thoroughly recognized in the inner consciousness of man, that even General von Boguslawski deduces from this popular right alone the coup d tat whereby to vindicate his Kaiser.
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://1lib.us/book/2484928/02ad1a https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865751879265812490/mecw10.pdf
The irony of history turns everything upside down. We, the revolutionists, the upsetters, we thrive much better with legal than with illegal means in forcing an overthrow. The parties of order, as they call themselves, perish because of the legal conditions set up by themselves. With Odilon Barrot they cry out in despair: la legalit nous tue-legality is our death-while we with this same legality acquire swelling muscles and red cheeks and look the picture of health. And if we are not insane enough to favor them by letting them drive us into street battles, nothing will in the end be left to them but themselves to break through the legality that is so fatal to them.
Summary
Eltis 2000 (ch8): summary of Marxist collapse theory: falling rate of profit + overaccumulation --> increasingly slow growth and increasingly strong crises
Eltis 2000 (ch8): summary of Marxist collapse theory: falling rate of profit + overaccumulation --> increasingly slow growth and increasingly strong crises: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-230-59820-1_8 https://u1lib.org/book/1197196/66937f http://bookszlibb74ugqojhzhg2a63w5i2atv5bqarulgczawnbmsb6s6qead.onion/book/1197196/66937f So Marx's theory of the tendency of the rate of profit and the growth of employment to decline can make little sense to economists today. His proposition that wages will rise less than productivity, if at all, is still more irrelevant to an understanding of how modern economies develop. Mainstream economics therefore almost wholly ignores Marx's explanations and predictions of the broad historical tendencies.
Theory of Accumulation Was Common: See Eg Keynes on Overaccumulation
John Maynard Keynes, 1936 General Theory of Employment, lnterest and Money, pp. 1 29-1 3 l: When involuntary unemployment exists, the marginal disutility of labour is necessarily less than the utility of the marginal product. [ ... ] Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our slatesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better. [ ... ]Just as wars have been the only form of large-scale loan expenditure which statesmen have thought justifiable, so gold-mining is the only pretext for digging holes in the ground which has recommended itself to bankers as sound finance; and each of these activities has played its part in progress - failing something better. Ancient Egypt was doubly fortunate, and doubtless owed to this its fabled wealth, in that it possessed two aclivities, namely pyramid-building as weil as the search for precious metals, the fruits of which, since they could not serve the needs of man by being consumed, did not stale with abundance.
John Maynard Keynes, 1936 General Theory of Employment, lnterest and Money, pp. 1 29-1 3 l: When involuntary unemployment exists, the marginal disutility of labour is necessarily less than the utility of the marginal product. [ ... ] Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our slatesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better. [ ... ]Just as wars have been the only form of large-scale loan expenditure which statesmen have thought justifiable, so gold-mining is the only pretext for digging holes in the ground which has recommended itself to bankers as sound finance; and each of these activities has played its part in progress - failing something better. Ancient Egypt was doubly fortunate, and doubtless owed to this its fabled wealth, in that it possessed two aclivities, namely pyramid-building as weil as the search for precious metals, the fruits of which, since they could not serve the needs of man by being consumed, did not stale with abundance.
Theory of Falling Profit Rate Was Common: See Eg John Smith and John Stuart Mill
these quotes are probably in Eltis 2000
these quotes are probably in Eltis 2000
Catastrophism Is Not Mechanistic
Rosseas 1979: Luxemburg believed that capitalism would mechanically (necessarily) collapse, but that socialism would not necessarily arise from its collapse
Rosseas 1979: Luxemburg believed that capitalism would mechanically (necessarily) collapse, but that socialism would not necessarily arise from its collapse: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01603477.1979.11489120 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/01603477.1979.11489120 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792781193123856394/rousseas1979.pdf
It was in the "or" of the "decline of civilization or the transition to socialism" and in the "Barbarism or Socialism" slogan of her 1916 Junius Pamphlet that the key to understanding Luxemburg lay. She was anything but a subscriber to Kautsky's notion of a mechanical dialectic (in his Road to Power). As Geras points out, Luxemburg equated barbarism with the collapse of capitalism - a collapse that, if unchallenged, would doom all civilization to extinction. The need for revolutionary activity was all the greater if extinction was to be avoided. The supersession of capitalism [by socialism] was a "necessity" in the sense that without it we are all doomed, not in the sense that it would inevitably follow the collapse of capitalism.
Cause of Catastrophe: Overaccumulation (Insufficient Effective Demand)
Rosseas 1979: summary of Luxemburg's collapse theory: real wages are stuck at the minimum do not rise, which means effective demand (consumption) does not rise, which means aggregate supply (production) does not rise
Rosseas 1979: summary of Luxemburg's collapse theory: real wages are stuck at the minimum do not rise, which means effective demand (consumption) does not rise, which means aggregate supply (production) does not rise: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01603477.1979.11489120 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/01603477.1979.11489120 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792781193123856394/rousseas1979.pdf
Not the Cause of Catastrophe: Falling Rate of Profit (Too Slow)
Luxemburg 1899: Luxemburg claims that a falling rate of profit would eventually make all new investment unprofitable
Luxemburg 1899: Luxemburg claims that a falling rate of profit would eventually make all new investment unprofitable: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/ch05.htm https://swp.org.uk/pamphlets/reform-or-revolution/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792776209028612126/luxemburg1899.pdf
In the unhindered advance of capitalist production lurks a threat to capitalism that is much greater than crises. It is the threat of the constant fall of the rate of profit, resulting not only from the contradiction between production and exchange, but from the growth of the productivity of labour itself. The fall in the rate of profit has the extremely dangerous tendency of rendering impossible any enterprise for small and middle-sized capitals. It thus limits the new formation and therefore the extension of placements of capital.
Luxemburg 1915: However, Luxemburg also thought that the falling rate of profit was so slow that it would never cause the collapse of capitalism
Luxemburg 1915: However, Luxemburg also thought that the falling rate of profit was so slow that it would never cause the collapse of capitalism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/anti-critique/ch02.htm https://u1lib.org/book/873136/99b0de https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792819104238927882/luxemburg1915.pdf
[W]e are left with the somewhat oblique comfort provided by a little expert from the Dresdener Volkszeitung who, after thoroughly destroying my book, explains that capitalism will eventually collapse because of the falling rate of profit . One is not too sure exactly how the dear man envisages this whether the capitalist class will at a certain point commit suicide in despair at the low rate of profit, or whether it will somehow declare that business is so bad that it is simply not worth the trouble, whereupon it will hand the key over to the proletariat? However that may be this comfort is unfortunately dispelled by a single sentence by Marx, namely the statement that large capitals will compensate for the fall in the rate of profit by mass production . **Thus there is still some time to pass before capitalism collapses because of the falling rate of profit, roughly until the sun burns out.**
^ in adition to Luxemburg, there is no reason to believe that capitalism faces more crises or sees a falling rate of investment: see the "rate of profit" section
^ in adition to Luxemburg, there is no reason to believe that capitalism faces more crises or sees a falling rate of investment: see the "rate of profit" section
Delaying Catastrophe: Imperialism Expands Markets Universally
Robinson 1968: Luxemburg claims that imperialism allows capitalism to survive the problem of overaccumulation, by shifting investment abroad
Robinson 1968: Luxemburg claims that imperialism allows capitalism to survive the problem of overaccumulation, by shifting investment abroad: https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
In chapter xxvi Rosa Luxemburg advances her central thesis that it is the invasion of primitive economies by capitalism which keeps the system alive. [....] The ever-growing capacity of the export industries requires the products of Department I, thus maintaining investment at home. [....] The process of building up this capital provides an outlet for the old industries and rescues them from the contradictions inherent in deficiency of demand.
Luxemburg 1913: Luxemburg argues the drive to accumulate causes capitalist countries, via imperialism, to expand capitalist markets to the entire world; but because capitalism (allegedly) cannot absorb its own surplus value, this will cause capitalism to collapse
Luxemburg 1913: Luxemburg argues the drive to accumulate causes capitalist countries, via imperialism, to expand capitalist markets to the entire world; but because capitalism (allegedly) cannot absorb its own surplus value, this will cause capitalism to collapse: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch29.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
The premises which are postulated in Marx s diagram of accumulation accordingly represent no more than the historical tendency of the movement of accumulation and its logical conclusion. [....] Its ultimate aim, that is to say, is to establish the exclusive and universal domination of capitalist production in all countries and for all branches of industry. Yet this argument does not lead anywhere. As soon as this final result is achieved in theory, of course, because it can never actually happen accumulation must come to a stop. The realisation and capitalisation of surplus value become impossible to accomplish. Just as soon as reality begins to correspond to Marx s diagram of enlarged reproduction, the end of accumulation is in sight, it has reached its limits, and capitalist production is in extremis. For capital, the standstill of accumulation means that the development of the productive forces is arrested, and the collapse of capitalism follows inevitably, as an objective historical necessity. This is the reason for the contradictory behaviour of capitalism in the final stage of its historical career: imperialism.
Luxemburg 1915: imperialism prolongs capitalism's existence
Luxemburg 1915: imperialism prolongs capitalism's existence: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/anti-critique/ch06.htm https://u1lib.org/book/873136/99b0de https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792819104238927882/luxemburg1915.pdf
Imperialism is as much a historical method for prolonging capital's existence as it is the surest way of setting an objective limit to its existence as fast as possible. This is not to say that the final point need actually be attained. The very tendency of capitalist development towards this end is expressed in forms which make the concluding phase of capitalism a period of catastrophes. The more ruthless1y capital uses militarism to put an end to noncapitalist strata in the outside world and at home, the more it depresses the conditions of existence of all working strata, the more the day-today history of capital accumulation on the world stage changes into an endless chain of political and social catastrophes and convulsions; these latter, together with the periodic economic catastrophes in the shape of crises, make continued accumulation impossible and the rebellion of the international working class against the rule of capital necessary, even before it has economically reached the limits it set for itself.
Failure of Luxemburgian Catastrophism: Overaccumulation Model Itself
Robinson 1968: even granting constant real wages, if capitalists can lend to each other, collapse is not inevitable
Robinson 1968: even granting constant real wages, if capitalists can lend to each other, collapse is not inevitable: https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
Section III .... opens with a return to Marx s model for a capitalist system with accumulation going on. [Luxemburg] then sets out a fresh model allowing for technical progress. The rate of exploitation (the ratio of surplus to wages) is rising, for real wages remain constant while output per man increases. [....] But there is no need to paddle in the arithmetic to find where the difficulty lies. The model is over-determined because of the rule that the increment of capital within each department at the end of a year must equal the saving made within the same department during the year. If capitalists from Department II [produces consumption goods] were permitted to lend part of their savings to Department I [produces capital, "means of production"] to be invested in its capital, a breakdown would no longer be inevitable. Suppose that total real wages are constant and that real consumption by capitalists increases slowly, so that the real output of Department II rises at a slower rate than productivity, then the amount of labour employed in it is shrinking. The ratio of capital to labour however is rising as a consequence of capital-using technical progress. The output of Department I, and its productive capacity, is growing through time. Capital invested in Department I is accumulating faster than the saving of the capitalists in Department I, and capitalists of Department II, who have no profitable outlet in their own industries for their savings, acquire titles to part of the capital in Department I by supplying the difference between investment in Department I and its own saving. For any increase in the stock of capital of both departments taken together, required by technical progress and demand conditions, there is an appropriate amount of saving, and so long as the total accumulation required and total saving fit, there is no breakdown.
Robinson 1968: This converts capitalist collapse from "historic necessity" to historic contingency: Under Luxemburg's model, stagnation *may* happen if capitalist savings-investment rates demand rates of accumulation higher than technical progress can sustain
Robinson 1968: This converts capitalist collapse from "historic necessity" to historic contingency: Under Luxemburg's model, stagnation *may* happen if capitalist savings-investment rates demand rates of accumulation higher than technical progress can sustain: https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
But here we find the clue to the real contradiction. These quantities might conceivably fit, but there is no guarantee that they will. If the ratio of saving which the capitalists (taken together) choose to make exceeds the rate of accumulation dictated by technical progress, the excess savings can only be capitalised if there is an outlet for investment outside the system. [....] Once more we can substitute for a supposed logical necessity a plausible hypothesis about the nature of the real case, and so rescue the succeeding argument. If in reality the distribution of income between workers and capitalists, and the propensity to save of capitalists, are such as to require a rate of accumulation which exceeds the rate of increase in the stock of capital appropriate to technical conditions, then there is a chronic excess of the potential supply of real capital over the demand for it and the system must fall into chronic depression.
Failure of Luxemburgian Catastrophism: Other Main Model Assumptions
Robinson 1968: "Luxemburg [...] neglects the rise in real wages [...] and denies the internal inducement to invest provided by technical progress, two factors which help to rescue capitalism[.] [...] She is left with only [...] imperialism to account for continuous capital accumulation[.]"
Robinson 1968: "Luxemburg [...] neglects the rise in real wages [...] and denies the internal inducement to invest provided by technical progress, two factors which help to rescue capitalism[.] [...] She is left with only [...] imperialism to account for continuous capital accumulation[.]" https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
Rosa Luxemburg, as we have seen, neglects the rise in real wages which takes place as capitalism develops, and denies the internal inducement to invest provided by technical progress, two factors which help to rescue capitalism from the difficulties which it creates for itself. She is left with only one influence (economic imperialism) to account for continuous capital accumulation, so that her analysis is incomplete. All the same, few would deny that the extension of capitalism into new territories was the mainspring of what an academic economist has called the vast secular boom of the last two hundred years,56 and many academic economists account for the uneasy condition of capitalism in the twentieth century largely by the closing of the frontier all over the world.57
Catastrophism Contradicts Reformism
Luxemburg 1899: Luxemburg asserts that those who reject catastrophism ("theory of collapse") believe that socialism is no longer a historic necessity
Luxemburg 1899: Luxemburg asserts that those who reject catastrophism ("theory of collapse") believe that socialism is no longer a historic necessity: https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/ch01.htm https://swp.org.uk/pamphlets/reform-or-revolution/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792776209028612126/luxemburg1899.pdf
Revisionist theory thus places itself in a dilemma. Either the socialist transformation is, as was admitted up to now, the consequence of the internal contradictions of capitalism, and with the growth of capitalism will develop its inner contradictions, resulting inevitably, at some point, in its collapse (in that case the means of adaptation are ineffective and the theory of collapse is correct); or the means of adaptation will really stop the collapse of the capitalist system and thereby enable capitalism to maintain itself by suppressing its own contradictions. In that case socialism ceases to be a historic necessity. It then becomes anything you want to call it, but it is no longer the result of the material development of society.
Luxemburg 1913: Luxemburg asserts that those who show that capitalism will not collapse due to crisis (because it can continue to grow forever) necessarily show that "socialism is impossible"
Luxemburg 1913: Luxemburg asserts that those who show that capitalism will not collapse due to crisis (because it can continue to grow forever) necessarily show that "socialism is impossible": https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch24.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2064926/d8244b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792770224738402314/luxemburg1913.pdf
Assuming the accumulation of capital to be without limits, one has obviously proved the unlimited capacity of capitalism to survive! Accumulation is the specifically capitalist method of expanding production, of furthering labour productivity, of developing the productive forces, of economic progress. If the capitalist mode of production can ensure boundless expansion of the productive forces, of economic progress, it is invincible indeed. The most important objective argument in support of socialist theory breaks down; socialist political action and the ideological import of the proletarian class struggle cease to reflect economic events, and socialism no longer appears an historical necessity. Setting out to show that capitalism is possible, this trend of reasoning ends up by showing that socialism is impossible.
Luxemburg 1915: rejection of collapse theory means rejection of socialism as historical necessity and return to ethical socialism (justifying socialism on the basis of capitalism's injustice)
Luxemburg 1915: rejection of collapse theory means rejection of socialism as historical necessity and return to ethical socialism (justifying socialism on the basis of capitalism's injustice): https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/anti-critique/ch02.htm https://u1lib.org/book/873136/99b0de https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/792819104238927882/luxemburg1915.pdf
According to Marx, the rebellion of the workers, the class struggle, is only the ideological reflection of the objective historical necessity of socialism, resulting from the objective impossibility of capitalism at a certain economic stage. Of course, that does not mean (it still seems necessary to point out those basics of Marxism to the experts ) that the historical process has to be, or even could be, exhausted to the very limit of this economic impossibility. Long before this, the objective tendency of capitalist development in this direction is sufficient to produce such a social and political sharpening of contradictions in society that they must terminate. But these social and political contradictions are essentially only a product of the economic indefensibility of capitalism. The situation continues to sharpen as this becomes increasingly obvious. **If we assume, with the experts , the economic infinity of capitalist accumulation, then the vital foundation on which socialism rests will disappear. We then take refuge in the mist of pre-Marxist systems and schools which attempted to deduce socialism solely on the basis of the injustice and evils of today s world and the revolutionary determination of the working classes.**
Terminology
Revolutionary Situation: a situation in which a successful socialist revolution is probable Objective Situation / Objective Forces: the objective economic and social conditions that enable socialist revolution Subjective Forces / Subjective Situation: the organized military forces that support the socialist revolution Lenin: Three Symptoms of a Revolutionary Situation
Lenin 1915: definition of a revolutionary situation
Lenin 1915: definition of a revolutionary situation: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/csi/ii.htm
To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the upper classes , a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for the lower classes not to want to live in the old way; it is also necessary that the upper classes should be unable to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in peace time , but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the upper classes themselves into independent historical action. Without these objective changes, which are independent of the will, not only of individual groups and parties but even of individual classes, a revolution, as a general rule, is impossible. The totality of all these objective changes is called a revolutionary situation.
Misattributed Quote: Mao on Revolutionary Situation
Griffith 1961: a revolutionary situation exists when gov'ts fail to provide a decent standard of life for the great majority of its situations
Griffith 1961: a revolutionary situation exists when gov'ts fail to provide a decent standard of life for the great majority of its situations: https://www.worldcat.org/title/994685309 https://u1lib.org/book/1220577/d4601a https://archive.org/details/yuchichanenglish00unse/page/4/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021206597965447269/griffith1961.pdf
A potential revolutionary situation exists in any country where the government consistently fails in its obligation to ensure at least a minimally decent standard of life for the great majority of its citizens. If there also exists even the nucleus of a revolutionary party able to supply doctrine and organization, only one ingredient is needed: the instrument for violent revolutionary action.
^ Samuel Griffith was a Brigadier General in the US Marine Corps; he translated Mao's *On Guerrilla Warfare* in the 1940's and again in the 1960's
^ Samuel Griffith was a Brigadier General in the US Marine Corps; he translated Mao's *On Guerrilla Warfare* in the 1940's and again in the 1960's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_B._Griffith
Griffith 1961: a revolutionary situation exists when gov'ts fail to provide a decent standard of life for the great majority of its situations
Griffith 1961: a revolutionary situation exists when gov'ts fail to provide a decent standard of life for the great majority of its situations: https://www.worldcat.org/title/994685309 https://u1lib.org/book/1220577/d4601a https://archive.org/details/yuchichanenglish00unse/page/4/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021206597965447269/griffith1961.pdf
In many countries, there are but two classes, the rich and the miserably poor. In these countries, the relatively small middle class merchants, bankers, doctors, lawyers, engineers lacks forceful leadership, is fragmented by unceasing factional quarrels, and is politically ineffective. Its program, which usually posits a socialized society and some form of liberal parliamentary democracy, is anathema to the exclusive and tightly knit possessing minority. It is also rejected by the frustrated intellectual youth, who move irrevocably toward violent revolution. To the illiterate and destitute, it represents a package of promises that experience tells them will never be fulfilled. People who live at subsistence level want first things to be put first. They are not particularly interested in freedomof religion, freedom of the press, free enterprise as we understand it, or the secret ballot. Their needs are more basic: land, tools, fertilizers, something better than rags for their children, houses to replace their shacks, freedomfrom police oppression, medical attention, primary schools. Those who have known oniy poverty have begun to wonder why they should continue to wait passively for improvements. They see and not always through Red-tinted glasses examples of peoples who have changed the structure of their societies, and they ask, "What have we to lose?" When a great many people begin to ask themselves this question, a revolutionary guerrilla situation is incipient.
Mao 1937: no such line occurs in "On Guerrilla Warfare"; note that the Marxists.org text is identical to Griffith's translation
Mao: When Revolutionary Struggle Is Inevitable
Mao 1937: the revolutionary struggle is "the inevitable result" when the oppressed "reach the limits of their endurance" in the clash against the oppressor
Mao 1937: the revolutionary struggle is "the inevitable result" when the oppressed "reach the limits of their endurance" in the clash against the oppressor: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Guerrilla_Warfare https://www.worldcat.org/title/994685309 https://u1lib.org/book/1220577/d4601a https://archive.org/details/yuchichanenglish00unse/page/4/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021206597965447269/griffith1961.pdf [note: Lenin wrote no document titled "People and Revolution"]
These guerrilla operations must not be considered as an independent form of warfare. They are but one step in the total war, one aspect of the revolutionary struggle. They are the inevitable result of the clash between oppressor and oppressed when the latter reach the limits of their endurance. In our case, these hostilities began at a time when the people were unable to endure any more from the Japanese imperialists. Lenin, in People and Revolution, said: "A people's insurrection and a people's revolution are not only natural but inevitable." We consider guerrilla operations as but one aspect of our total or mass war because they, lacking the quality of independence, are of themselves incapable of providing a solution to the struggle.
Mao: On the Subjective and Objective Forces of the Revolution in China and Europe
Mao 1930: the subjective forces of the revolution are weak in China, but so are the subjective forces of reaction; in contrast, the subjective forces of reaction are far stronger in Europe
Mao 1930: the subjective forces of the revolution are weak in China, but so are the subjective forces of reaction; in contrast, the subjective forces of reaction are far stronger in Europe: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_6.htm https://www.worldcat.org/title/780479697 https://u1lib.org/book/21132822/08d679 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021212471572303882/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021228566161145916/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress-pages-125-136.pdf
1. Although the subjective forces of the revolution in China are now weak, so also are all organizations (organs of political power, armed forces, political parties, etc.) of the reactionary ruling classes, resting as they do on the backward and fragile social and economic structure of China. This helps to explain why revolution cannot break out at once in the countries of Western Europe where, although the subjective forces of revolution are now perhaps somewhat stronger than in China, the forces of the reactionary ruling classes are many times stronger. In China the revolution will undoubtedly move towards a high tide more rapidly, for although the subjective forces of the revolution at present are weak, the forces of the counter-revolution are relatively weak too.
Mao 1930: the subjective forces of the revolution in China can grow rapidly because of the "conditions prevailing in China" (the objective situation)
Mao 1930: the subjective forces of the revolution in China can grow rapidly because of the "conditions prevailing in China" (the objective situation): https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_6.htm https://www.worldcat.org/title/780479697 https://u1lib.org/book/21132822/08d679 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021212471572303882/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021228566161145916/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress-pages-125-136.pdf
2. The subjective forces of the revolution have indeed been greatly weakened since the defeat of the revolution in 1927. The remaining forces are very small and those comrades who judge by appearances alone naturally feel pessimistic. But if we judge by essentials, it is quite another story. Here we can apply the old Chinese saying, "A single spark can start a prairie fire." In other words, our forces, although small at present, will grow very rapidly. In the conditions prevailing in China, their growth is not only possible but indeed inevitable, as the May 30th Movement and the Great Revolution which followed have fully proved. When we look at a thing, we must examine its essence and treat its appearance merely as an usher at the threshold, and once we cross the threshold, we must grasp the essence of the thing; this is the only reliable and scientific method of analysis.
Mao 1930: the objective situation in China suggests that a "revolutionary high tide" is developing, and the situation in "China and the world as a whole" give some cause for "optimism"
Mao 1930: the objective situation in China suggests that a "revolutionary high tide" is developing, and the situation in "China and the world as a whole" give some cause for "optimism": https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_6.htm https://www.worldcat.org/title/780479697 https://u1lib.org/book/21132822/08d679 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021212471572303882/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021228566161145916/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress-pages-125-136.pdf
4. The objective situation today is still such that comrades who see only the superficial appearance and not the essence of what is before them are liable to be misled. In particular, when our comrades working in the Red Army are defeated in battle or encircled or pursued by strong enemy forces, they often unwittingly generalize and exaggerate their momentary, specific and limited situation, as though the situation in China and the world as a whole gave no cause for optimism and the prospects of victory for the revolution were remote. The reason they seize on the appearance and brush aside the essence in their observation of things is that they have not made a scientific analysis of the essence of the overall situation. The question whether there will soon be a revolutionary high tide in China can be decided only by making a detailed examination to ascertain whether the contradictions leading to a revolutionary high tide are really developing.
Mao 1930: the objective situation in China suggests that a revolutionary high tide is coming, "all China is littered with dry faggots which will soon be aflame"
Mao 1930: the objective situation in China suggests that a revolutionary high tide is coming, "all China is littered with dry faggots which will soon be aflame": https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_6.htm https://www.worldcat.org/title/780479697 https://u1lib.org/book/21132822/08d679 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021212471572303882/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021228566161145916/SWoMT_ForeignLanguagePress-pages-125-136.pdf
In the wake of imperialist commercial aggression, Chinese merchant-capitalist extortions, heavier government taxation, etc., comes the deepening of the contradiction between the landlord class and the peasantry, that is, exploitation through rent and usury is aggravated and the hatred of the peasants for the landlords grows. Because of the pressure of foreign goods, the exhaustion of the purchasing power of the worker and peasant masses, and the increase in government taxation, more and more dealers in Chinese-made goods and independent producers are being driven into bankruptcy. Because the reactionary government, though short of provisions and funds, endlessly expands its armies and thus constantly extends the warfare, the masses of soldiers are in a constant state of privation. Because of the growth in government taxation, the rise in rent and interest demanded by the landlords and the daily spread of the disasters of war, there are famine and banditry everywhere and the peasant masses and the urban poor can hardly keep alive. Because the schools have no money, many students fear that their education may be interrupted; because production is backward, many graduates have no hope of employment. Once we understand all these contradictions, we shall see in what a desperate situation, in what a chaotic state, China finds herself. We shall also see that the high tide of revolution against the imperialists, the warlords and the landlords is inevitable, and will come very soon. All China is littered with dry faggots which will soon be aflame. The saying, "A single spark can start a prairie fire", is an apt description of how the current situation will develop. We need only look at the strikes by the workers, the uprisings by the peasants, the mutinies of soldiers and the strikes of students which are developing in many places to see that it cannot be long before a "spark" kindles "a prairie fire".
Summary
During World War 1, most social-democratic parties split into a majority-defencist and minority-internationalist faction. Defencists argued that socdems should support defensive war efforts, but not offensive war efforts, seeking peace through defensive stalemate. (More extreme, social patriots argued that socdems should support all war efforts.) Internationalists argued that socdems should oppose all war efforts, seeking peace through mass strike. (More extreme, defeatists argued that socdems should encourage the defeat of their own country, in order to bring about a civil war that they might win.) Most French and German Social Democrats were defencists. Most Russian Social Democrats were internationalists until 1917, when they favored "revolutionary defencism" (continuing the war to defend the revolution, Mensheviks and SRs) or "revolutionary defeatists" (abandoning the war to start and win a civil war to complete the revolution, Bolsheviks).
During World War 1, most social-democratic parties split into a majority-defencist and minority-internationalist faction. Defencists argued that socdems should support defensive war efforts, but not offensive war efforts, seeking peace through defensive stalemate. (More extreme, social patriots argued that socdems should support all war efforts.) Internationalists argued that socdems should oppose all war efforts, seeking peace through mass strike. (More extreme, defeatists argued that socdems should encourage the defeat of their own country, in order to bring about a civil war that they might win.) Most French and German Social Democrats were defencists. Most Russian Social Democrats were internationalists until 1917, when they favored "revolutionary defencism" (continuing the war to defend the revolution, Mensheviks and SRs) or "revolutionary defeatists" (abandoning the war to start and win a civil war to complete the revolution, Bolsheviks). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalist%E2%80%93defencist_schism
Kautsky: Not Clear Which Victor Is Better for Workers and Democracy
Kautsky 1914 trans Goode 1983: it's not clear whether "the proletarian and democratic interest" lies more in a French-Russian victory or a German victory; Russian Tsarist despotism is worse than German Kaiserreich is worse than French Republicanism
Kautsky 1914 trans Goode 1983: it's not clear whether "the proletarian and democratic interest" lies more in a French-Russian victory or a German victory; Russian Tsarist despotism is worse than German Kaiserreich is worse than French Republicanism: https://www.worldcat.org/title/9619503 https://u1lib.org/book/2673294/630659 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017656833030242324/kautsky1983.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820860600800378881/1017684937509441607/unknown.png
[Our French comrades] feel themselves obliged to struggle as Republicans against the Kaiserreich. But the same obligation to struggle was felt by most German Social Democrats, for to them the war seems to be a struggle of a country which has universal and equal suffrage, the right of association, and the freedom of the press, against Tsarist despotism. The Germans are fighting both the Tsar and the Republicans, the French against German 'imperialism' and for Russian absolutism. But where does the proletarian and democratic interest lie? But if in the present situation neither the criterion of a war of aggression nor that of proletarian interest can give rise to an equally clear and binding conception for the comrades of all countries, there remains a third possibility for the deciding criterion. One can dispute who is the aggressor, who has been attacked; which threatens the democracy of Europe more - a victory of Germany over France or a victory of Russia over Germany[.]
Kautsky: Defencism Is Correct
Kautsky 1914 trans Goode 1983: the proletarian of every country have an urgent interest in preventing actual enemy territorial invasion, which yields "the horrors and devastation of war in its most terrible form"
Kautsky 1914 trans Goode 1983: the proletarian of every country have an urgent interest in preventing actual enemy territorial invasion, which yields "the horrors and devastation of war in its most terrible form": https://www.worldcat.org/title/9619503 https://u1lib.org/book/2673294/630659 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017656833030242324/kautsky1983.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820860600800378881/1017684990710005760/unknown.png
[B]ut one thing is clear: every country and the proletariat of every country have an urgent interest in preventing their country's enemy from crossing its borders, thus preventing the horrors and devastation of war in its most terrible form, that of enemy invasion. In every national state, the proletariat too must use all its energy to preserve intact the independence and unity of its national area. This is an essential part of democracy, of the necessary basis for the struggle and victory of the proletariat.
Kautsky 1914 trans Goode 1983: social democrats must treat the war as one of defence only, with security as the goal insead of "humilitating or mutilating" enemy countries
Kautsky 1914 trans Goode 1983: social democrats must treat the war as one of defence only, with security as the goal insead of "humilitating or mutilating" enemy countries: https://www.worldcat.org/title/9619503 https://u1lib.org/book/2673294/630659 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017656833030242324/kautsky1983.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/820860600800378881/1017684209894182933/unknown.png
Further, the Social Democracy in every nation is obliged to consider the war only as a war of defence, and to set as its goal only defending itself against the enemy, not of 'punishing' or belittling the enemy. As this conception seeks the causes of the war not in the personal depravity or inferiority of the opponent, but in objective conditions, it will strive for the security which the conclusion of peace brings not by humiliating or mutilating its opponent, which would only cause new wars in the future, but by replacing those conditions which led to the war - that is, imperialist conflicts and the armaments race.
Lenin 1914: we won't take Kautsky at his word, because Kautsky is politically bankrupt
Lenin 1914: we won't take Kautsky at his word, because Kautsky is politically bankrupt: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/dec/12.htm https://u1lib.org/book/5771787/a9c91d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017695512369041438/lenin1914.pdf
We have purposely quoted from the original because it is hard to believe that such things could have been written. It is hard to find in literature (except in that coming from downright renegades) such smug vulgarity, such shameful departure from the truth, such unsavoury subterfuge to cover up the most patent renunciation both of socialism in general and of precise international decisions unanimously adopted (as, for instance, in Stuttgart and particularly in Basic) precisely in view of the possibility of a European war just like the present! It would be disrespectful towards the reader were we to treat Kautsky s arguments in earnest and try to analyse them: if the European war differs in many respects from a simple little anti-Jewish pogrom, the socialist arguments in favour of participation in such a war fully resimhle the democratic arguments in favour of participation in an anti-Jewish pogrom. One does not analyse arguments in favour of a pogrom; one only points them out so as to put their authors to shame in the sight of all class-conscious workers.
Lenin 1914: Kautsky has sunk "to something that is worse than being a renegade", because he is "politically bankrupt", and "vacillates" between positions
Lenin 1914: Kautsky has sunk "to something that is worse than being a renegade", because he is "politically bankrupt", and "vacillates" between positions: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/dec/12.htm https://u1lib.org/book/5771787/a9c91d https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017695512369041438/lenin1914.pdf
But how could it have come to pass, the reader will ask, that the leading authority in the Second International, a writer who once defended the views quoted at the beginning of this article, has sunk to something that is worse than being a renegade? That will not be understood, we answer, only by those who, perhaps unconsciously, consider that nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and that it is not difficult to forgive and forget , etc., i.e., by those who regard the matter from the renegade s point of view. Those, however, who have earnestly and sincerely professed socialist convictions and have held the views set forth in the beginning of this article will not be surprised to learn that Vorwdrts is dead (Martov s expression in the Paris Gobs) and that Kautsky is dead . The political bankruptcy of individuals is not a rarity at turning points in history. Despite the tremendous services he has rendered, Kautsky has never been among those who, at great crises, immediately take a militant Marxist stand (recall his vacillations on the issue of Millerandism[2]).
Todo Reread XXX
Goode 1983: background to The Dictatorship of the Proletariat against The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
Goode 1983: background to The Dictatorship of the Proletariat against The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky: https://www.worldcat.org/title/9619503 https://u1lib.org/book/2673294/630659 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017656833030242324/kautsky1983.pdf
Kautsky was sacked as editor of Die Neue Zeit in August 1917, and the post was given to the right-winger, H. Cunow. This may explain why his initial reaction to the October Revolution is difficult to gauge. Almost a year went by before he expressed his condemnation. In an article in Sozialistische Auslandspolitik (August 1918), he called on the Social Democratic parties to fight the Bolsheviks. When Lenin read this article, he was, Bonch-Bruyevich recalls, 'literally burning with anger . .. sitting up every day till late at night writing this remarkably hard-hitting work'3 - a reference to Lenin's merciless attack on Kautsky in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky.
Summary
The United Nations is good. It would be gooder if it were stronger.
The United Nations is good. It would be gooder if it were stronger.
Todo Reread
Rana 2022: "Left Internationalism in the Heart of Empire"
Ganz 2022: "The Polish Question and the Left The Foreign Policy of Marx and Engels"
Ganz 2022: "The Polish Question and the Left The Foreign Policy of Marx and Engels": https://johnganz.substack.com/p/the-polish-question-and-the-left
Ayoub 2022: "On Ukraine-Syria solidarity and the anti-imperialism of idiots "
Bilous 2022: "A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv The anti-imperialism of idiots meant people turned a blind eye to Russia s actions"
Al Shami 2018: "The anti-imperialism of idiots"
Ayoub 2018: "Rohini Hensman Analyzes the new "Second Camp Anti-Imperialism""
Ayoub 2018: "Rohini Hensman Analyzes the new "Second Camp Anti-Imperialism"" https://newpol.org/rohini-hensman-analyzes-new-second-camp-antiimperialism/
Why Marx Was Wrong
Roosevelt 1993: criticism of Marx's rejection of market socialism: Marx failed to outline an effective method of planning, leaving him no ground to critique markets
Roosevelt 1993: criticism of Marx's rejection of market socialism: Marx failed to outline an effective method of planning, leaving him no ground to critique markets: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-22572-9_14 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/978-1-349-22572-9_14 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/781175128180129852/roosevelt1993.pdf
Perhaps the most general criticism that has been levelled against Marx is that he seems not to have paid attention to the fact that there are only two known ways, broadly speaking, in which the economic activities of any society can be organized and coordinated -- these being, on the one hand, the market and, on the other, some form of political process (i.e., planning of one kind or another). Before one recommends the elimination of one of these options, one should be reasonably certain that the other one will work (i.e., will accomplish the objectives one has in mind). That Marx did not engage in this necessary thought process may be seen in a well-known passage in The German Ideology, in which he and Engels criticized the capitalist division of labour and contrasted it with their view of the way economic life would be organized in communist society:
Marx on Market Socialism Proper: Strongly Opposed
Marx 1875: marx claims that socialism cannot include product exchange for profit
Marx 1875: marx claims that socialism cannot include product exchange for profit: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484971/053dce https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/865284162122285076/mecw24.pdf
Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.
Marx Quotes on Capitalism and Growth
Marx 1848: capitalism has produced more economic growth than all previous economic systems combined
Marx 1848: capitalism has produced more economic growth than all previous economic systems combined: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/863919342391132240/Marx1848.pdf
**The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.** Subjection of Nature s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
Marx Quotes on Nature of Competition: Capitalists Not Evil, Laws Can Force Good Behavior
Marx 1867: marx claims capitalists can be good people but will be forced by competition into exploitation (eg, child labor) unless society forces them not to
Marx 1867: marx claims capitalists can be good people but will be forced by competition into exploitation (eg, child labor) unless society forces them not to: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/786799041706852362/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society. But looking at things as a whole, all this does not, indeed, depend on the good or ill will of the individual capitalist. Free competition brings out the inherent laws of capitalist production, in the shape of external coercive laws having power over every individual capitalist.
We, therefore, find, e.g., that in the beginning of 1863, 26 firms owning extensive potteries in Staffordshire, amongst others, Josiah Wedgwood, & Sons, petition in a memorial for some legislative enactment. Competition with other capitalists permits them no voluntary limitation of working-time for children, &c. Much as we deplore the evils before mentioned, it would not be possible to prevent them by any scheme of agreement between the manufacturers. ... Taking all these points into consideration, we have come to the conviction that some legislative enactment is wanted.
Marx Quotes on Origin of Worker-Manager Antagonism
Marx 1894: managers work to exploit the labor of others
Marx 1894: managers work to exploit the labor of others: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm
To say that this labour is necessary as capitalistic labour, or as a function of the capitalist, only means that the vulgus is unable to conceive the forms developed in the lap of capitalist production, separate and free from their antithetical capitalist character. **The industrial capitalist is a worker, compared to the money-capitalist, but a worker in the sense of capitalist, i.e., an exploiter of the labour of others.**
Marx Quotes on Alienation in Cooperatives
Marx 1894: in cooperatives, management is not antagonistic to labor because all share the profits (not just the capitalist manager)
Marx 1894: in cooperatives, management is not antagonistic to labor because all share the profits (not just the capitalist manager): https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm
The wages of management both for the commercial and industrial manager are completely isolated from the profits of enterprise in the co-operative factories of labourers, as well as in capitalist stock companies. The separation of wages of management from profits of enterprise, purely accidental at other times, is here constant. **In a co-operative factory the antagonistic nature of the labour of supervision disappears, because the manager is paid by the labourers instead of representing capital counterposed to them.**
Marx 1894: supervision of labor by management is necessary under every mode of production (slave, feudal, capitalist), but management is only antagonistic to labor when their goals are antagonistic
Marx 1894: supervision of labor by management is necessary under every mode of production (slave, feudal, capitalist), but management is only antagonistic to labor when their goals are antagonistic: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm
On the one hand, **all labour in which many individuals co-operate necessarily requires a commanding will to co-ordinate and unify the process**, and functions which apply not to partial operations but to the total activity of the workshop, much as that of an orchestra conductor. This is a productive job, which must be performed in every combined mode of production. On the other hand quite apart from any commercial department **this supervision work necessarily arises in all modes of production based on the antithesis between the labourer, as the direct producer, and the owner of the means of production**. The greater this antagonism, the greater the role played by supervision. Hence it reaches its peak in the slave system.
Scope of Immigration in the Usa
mass migration is a meme in the USA: as a proportion of population, the US has had far higher immigration rates than it currently does
mass migration is a meme in the USA: as a proportion of population, the US has had far higher immigration rates than it currently does: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook https://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p2-13.pdf
mass immigration is a meme in the USA: as a proportion of population, the US has had higher non-native residents than it currently does
mass immigration is a meme in the USA: as a proportion of population, the US has had higher non-native residents than it currently does: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/30/how-u-s-immigration-laws-and-rules-have-changed-through-history/
Scope of Illegal Immigration the Usa
bad article asserting the USA has 22 million illegal immigrants (instead of the usual 11 million)
bad article asserting the USA has 22 million illegal immigrants (instead of the usual 11 million): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0201193
^ debunking article demonstrating the same methodology could assert the USA has 8.5 million illegal immigrants
^ debunking article demonstrating the same methodology could assert the USA has 8.5 million illegal immigrants: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204199
Scope of Immigration in Europe
immigrant share over time in europe
Why Don't Africans Move to Africa: They Do
the vast majority of international migration is intra-continent (lots of Africans move to other African countries, etc.)
Why Don't Whites Move to Africa: They Do
fifteen percent of Ghanian immigrants come from Europe
fifteen percent of Ghanian immigrants come from Europe: https://africasacountry.com/2016/10/the-majority-of-africans-migrants-refugees-between-countries-on-the-continent/ The IMO report showed also that not every immigrant to Ghana comes from a neighboring state. Fifteen percent come from Europe, like Torbj rn Toby Bergman.
Employment + Wages
a consensus study by the National Academies finds that immigration to the US increases economic growth and doesn't reduce wages
a consensus study by the National Academies finds that immigration to the US increases economic growth and doesn't reduce wages: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration
Employment and Wages: Meta-Analysis
Longhi 2010: a meta-analysis of seven immigration studies finds almost no effect on native wages or native employment
Longhi 2010: a meta-analysis of seven immigration studies finds almost no effect on native wages or native employment: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10109-010-0111-y http://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s10109-010-0111-y We find small wage and employment impacts, even smaller than have been detected in previous metaanalytic research. A 1% point increase in the share of immigrants in a local labour market of the typical host country decreases wages of the native born by 0.029% (using a weighted average with weights determined by the precision of the estimates) and decreases employment of the native born by 0.011%.
three other meta-studies in here: "Survey papers"
Employment and Wages: Single Studies
immigration to the US slightly increases wages for natives, slightly decreases wages for low-education natives, and significantly decreases wages for immigrants
immigration to the US slightly increases wages for natives, slightly decreases wages for low-education natives, and significantly decreases wages for immigrants: https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article/10/1/152/2182016 https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1542-4774.2011.01052.x In the long run, these estimates imply an overall average positive effect of immigration on native wages of about 0.6% and an overall average negative effect on the wages of previous immigrants of about 6%. [....] All in all, one finding seems robust: once imperfect substitutability between natives and immigrants is allowed for, over the period 1990 2006 immigration to the United States had at most a modest negative long-run effect on the real wages of the least educated natives. This effect is between 2.1% and +1.7% depending on the chosen nesting structure, with the positive results coming from the nesting structure preferred by the data. Our finding at the national level of a small wage effect of immigration on less-educated natives is in line with the findings identified at the city level.
immigration is a net positive for the economy, but unequally benefits the high-skilled
immigration is a net positive for the economy, but unequally benefits the high-skilled: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/589756 http://sci-hub.se/10.1086/589756 The wage effects are sizeable but plausible: a 10 percent increase in the number of low-skilled immigrants in a city reduces the wages of low-skilled natives by 0.6 percent and of low-skilled immigrants by 8 percent (an own-labor demand elasticity of -1.2). My results imply that the low-skilled immigration wave of the 1990s increased the purchasing power of high-skilled workers living in the 25 largest cities by an average of 0.65 percent and decreased the purchasing power of native high school dropouts by an average of 2.66 percent. I conclude that, through lower prices, low-skilled immigration brings positive net benefits to the US economy as a whole, but generates a redistribution of wealth: it reduces the real income of low-skilled natives and increases the real income of high-skilled natives.
Employment Rate of Refugees
after 20 years, European refugee employment rate is identical to native employment rate
after 20 years, European refugee employment rate is identical to native employment rate: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/614200/IPOL_STU(2018)614200_EN.pdf
Productivity Growth
states with more foreign-born workers experience faster TFP (productivity) growth
H1B visas increase sales, employment, and profits for US firms
Proportion of Economic Growth Going to Immigrants vs Natives
even immigration skeptic George Borjas admits that immigrants are net contributors
even immigration skeptic George Borjas admits that immigrants are net contributors: https://www.vox.com/2015/8/17/9164725/immigration-and-wages-impact https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/popular/CIS2013.pdf
Of the $1.6 trillion increase in GDP, 97.8 percent goes to the immigrants themselves in the form of wages and benefits; the remainder constitutes the "immigration surplus" the benefit accruing to the native-born population, including both workers, owners of firms, and other users of the services provided by immigrants.
Innovation Growth
76 percent of patents from top 10 patent-producing universities had 1 or more foreign-born author
76 percent of patents from top 10 patent-producing universities had 1 or more foreign-born author: https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/patent-pending.pdf
H1B visas increase innovation rates
H1B visas increase innovation rates: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15768.pdf
immigrants produce patents at double the rate as natives, and the presence of these immigrants generates positive spillovers on patenting by natives
immigrants produce patents at double the rate as natives, and the presence of these immigrants generates positive spillovers on patenting by natives: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14312.pdf
Brain Drain Appears Not to Be Real
outmigration (highly circular) from Nepal increased education and employment among nonmigrant Nepalese
outmigration (highly circular) from Nepal increased education and employment among nonmigrant Nepalese: https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/127/600/495/5067822 Starting in 1993, recruits were required to have completed at least eight years of education and written tests in mathematics and English became part of the selection process. In 1997, the minimum education requirement was increased to 10 years. [....] Third, because recruits must be between 17 1/2 and 21 years old, men who were 22 or older in 1993 were not affected by the change. These older men are referred to as the ineligible cohort and the younger ones are referred to as the eligible cohort.
Historical Natural Experiment: Iceland
Nakamura Sigurdsson Steinsson: a lava eruption in 1973 on an island in Iceland may have caused small but significant income gains among those who were forced to move; suggests that migration frictions left some people some people stuck in place
Nakamura Sigurdsson Steinsson: a lava eruption in 1973 on an island in Iceland may have caused small but significant income gains among those who were forced to move; suggests that migration frictions left some people some people stuck in place: https://www.nber.org/papers/w22392 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/985299667015331890/nakamura2019.pdf
Student Debt Relief as Labor Mobility
Todo Reread
^ Abramitzky and Boustan 2022: book expanding on the concept
Abramitzky Boustan Eriksson 2012
Abramitzky Boustan Eriksson 2014
Rent/Housing
immigration does increase rent -- but real GDP per capita does so even more strongly
immigration does increase rent -- but real GDP per capita does so even more strongly: http://www.economicissues.org.uk/Files/2015/115Latif.pdf
immigration does increase housing prices
immigration does increase housing prices and rent: 1% per 1% increase in city population
immigration does increase housing prices and rent: 1% per 1% increase in city population: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009411900600074X [xxx reread]
Welfare Use by Immigrants
immigrants are not much more likely to use welfare
Tax Payments of Illegal Immigrants
illegal immigrants paid $11.7bn in state and local taxes in 2014
about half of illegal immigrants pay taxes, and they pay at rates close to what they would pay if they were legal
about half of illegal immigrants pay taxes, and they pay at rates close to what they would pay if they were legal: https://itep.org/wp-content/uploads/undocumentedtaxes.pdf Undocumented immigrants currently contribute significantly to state and local taxes, collectively paying an estimated $10.6 billion in 2010 with contributions ranging from less than $2 million in Montana to more than $2.2 billion in California. This means these families are likely paying about 6.4 percent on average of their income in state and local taxes. Allowing undocumented immigrants to work in the United States legally would increase their state and local tax contributions by an estimated $2 billion a year. Their effective state and local tax rate would also increase to 7 percent on average, which would put their tax contributions more in line with documented taxpayers with similar incomes.
people without social security numbers paid $23.6bn in income taxes in 2015
American Legal Immigrants: Lower Crime: Legal Only
Bersani 2013: in the NLSY97 from 1998-2005 first-generation immigrant crime is lower than native crime and rises to the native mean in the second generation
legal immigrants to the USA have lower institutionalization rates (ie, prison) than natives
legal immigrants to the USA have lower institutionalization rates (ie, prison) than natives http://www.nber.org/papers/w13229.pdf
American Legal Immigrants: Lower Crime: Refugee
New American Economy 2017: in several major recipient cities, refugees have lower crime rates than natives
New American Economy 2017: in several major recipient cities, refugees have lower crime rates than natives: http://research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/is-there-a-link-between-refugees-and-u-s-crime-rates/
American Illegal: Lower Crime
Nowrasteh 2018: illegal immigrants to the USA have lower rates of conviction for homicide, sexual assault, and larceny than natives
Nowrasteh 2018: illegal immigrants to the USA have lower rates of conviction for homicide, sexual assault, and larceny than natives https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-texas-illegal-immigrant
Light and Miller 2018: areas with higher numbers of illegal immigrants have lower rates of violent crime (homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, rape)
Breakdown by Race (They Always Pivot to Race Lmao)
Landgrave and Nowrasteh 2018: immigrants (both legal and illegal) have lower crime rates than natives in each racial category
ACS 2010: every race of immigrant has lower incarceration rates than white non-Hispanic natives
ACS 2010: every race of immigrant has lower incarceration rates than white non-Hispanic natives: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data/pums/
Bad Alternative Hypothesis "Study"
claim
232,541 is simply not in this pdf
Acid Attacks
BBC 2017: acid attacks are mostly conducted by European and African Caribbean people, not Asian or Arabian people; in contrast, Asian people are often the victims of acid hate attacks
BBC 2017: acid attacks are mostly conducted by European and African Caribbean people, not Asian or Arabian people; in contrast, Asian people are often the victims of acid hate attacks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5d38c003-c54a-4513-a369-f9eae0d52f91
Child Sexual Abuse
UK gov't 2011: the population of England and Wales in 2011 was 86.0% white, 8.7% Asian, 3.3% black, 2.2% mixed-race, and 1.0% other
UK gov't 2011: the population of England and Wales in 2011 was 86.0% white, 8.7% Asian, 3.3% black, 2.2% mixed-race, and 1.0% other: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/KS201EW/view/2092957703?cols=measures
UK gov't 2011: among those found guilty of sexual activity with a minor in England and Wales in 2011, 85% were white, 3% black, 4% Asian, and the rest (8%) listed as "other" or unknown
Overall Crime Rate Over Time
Germany is at its lowest crimerate since 1992
^ data source
in 2015, refugee crime in Germany increased by just 79% while the number of refugees increased 440%
Controlling for Age
accounting for age, migrants in Germany had similar suspect rates as Germans
accounting for age, migrants in Germany had similar suspect rates as Germans: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-72159-0_26 http://sci-hub.se/10.1007/978-3-319-72159-0_26
If one would attribute the increase in crime that was observed in 2015 entirely to the refugees that entered Germany in this year, this would lead to a rate of suspects per 100.00 (Tatverd chtigenbelastungszahl, TVBZ) of 5800 for this group of refugees. This rate for Germans was 2124. Hence, the rate for refugees would be considerably higher than the rate for the Germans. But if we take a closer look at the rate of Germans aged between 16 and 30 (which is the age group most closely to that of refugees), one comes to another conclusion. Here, the rate for Germans ranges between 4200 and 5800, so absolutely in the range that is calculated (though inadequately) when observing refugees only. If we apply these numbers to those offenses that seem to matter most to the public (such as burglaries and sexual assaults), then the increase of non-German suspects (and especially of refugees) is considerably lower than one would initially have expected.
police documents reveal that refugees commit less crime than Germans
Rapefugees Website
websites like Rapefugees include substantial fake cases
Scope of Crime Committed by Asylum Seekers
in 2015, 1% of police reports are attributed to asylum seekers and 1.8% of the Swedish population were asylum seekers
in 2015, 1% of police reports are attributed to asylum seekers and 1.8% of the Swedish population were asylum seekers http://cpsblog.isr.umich.edu/?p=1905 If asylum-seekers are particularly crime-prone, then we would expect to see crime rates in which they are overrepresented relative to how many are living in Sweden. Sweden hosted approximately 180,000 asylum-seekers during this period and the population of Sweden is approximately 10 million. Therefore, asylum-seekers make up approximately 1.8% of the people living in Sweden, while 1% of the police reports filed in STORM were attributed to asylum-seekers.
Rape: Police Report Data
according to police reports data in Sweden, the rape rate hasn't significantly changed between 2008 and 2015 (the rape law was reformed in 2005)
according to police reports data in Sweden, the rape rate hasn't significantly changed between 2008 and 2015 (the rape law was reformed in 2005): http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2017/04/19/what-crime-data-from-sweden-can-and-cannot-tell-us/
according to police reports data in Sweden, the rate of rape has only slightly increased since 2015 (the rape law was reformed in 2005)
according to police reports data in Sweden, the rate of rape has only slightly increased since 2015 (the rape law was reformed in 2005): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkjkU2w6jhw https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Rnn3Ur8ofYRAIlexfvbc_HXaH7kkWczm
Rape: Convictions Data
the number of convictions for rape has been basically flat since 2005
the number of convictions for rape has been basically flat since 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden The number of convictions has remained relatively unchanged since 2005, with approximately 190 convictions on average each year.[9][10] The total number of convictions for rape and aggravated rape in Sweden 2015 was 176.
Sexual Assault
Sweden changed its definition of sexual assault in 2005 and in 2013
Sweden changed its definition of sexual assault in 2005 and in 2013 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/24/no-sweden-isnt-hiding-an-immigrant-crime-problem-this-is-the-real-story/ http://archive.is/T5IuS In Sweden, the legal definition of sexual assault is much broader than it is in the U.S. and even other European countries. While the rate of rape has remained steady in Sweden over the past decade, changes to the legal definition of sexual assault in 2005 and 2013 resulted in increases in reported sexual assault because more acts now fall within the legal definition and are therefore officially counted. Thus, the standard of accountability has increased.
2005 reform: After, sex with a person in a "helpless state" (e.g. intoxicated, asleep) was sexual assault
2013 reform: Previously, sex with a person in "helpless state" was sexual assault; after, a person in a "particularly vulnerable situation" was sexual assault.
2013 reform: Previously, sex with a person in "helpless state" was sexual assault; after, a person in a "particularly vulnerable situation" was sexual assault. https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/arende/betankande/en-skarpt-sexualbrottslagstiftning_H001JuU20
Don't Cite the Swedish Crime Survey
commonly cited source (Swedish Crime Survey, not police report data)
why not to use SCS (NTU) data
why not to use SCS (NTU) data: http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2017/04/19/what-crime-data-from-sweden-can-and-cannot-tell-us/ Many people responded to our articles by citing data from the National Crime Survey (NTU) on an increase from 1% to 1.7% in sexual assault. In doing so, they misunderstood the important distinction between sexual offense and rape. While the NTU survey includes a question about rape, it has not released the raw data or discussed the findings. There are two likely reasons for this. First, there are so few cases of rape in the survey data that they cannot confidently make estimates about its occurrence in the population. Second, the authors of the report believe that respondents perceptions may not be accurate reflections of the legal distinctions between various categories of sex offenses. While the NTU is not confident in making precise estimates of the occurrence of rape, it does believe the data are sufficient to conclude that the rate of rape and other forms of coercive sexual offenses ( sexuellt tv ng ) is higher than data from the police reports indicate. This means that there is underreporting by victims. Unfortunately, we cannot estimate how the probability of a victim reporting a sexual offense event has changed from year to year, and this affects our ability to draw conclusions about trends in the rape data.
Demographic Makeup of the Usa in 1790: Mostly Brits, Mostly Protestants
in 1790, the US white population was 85.6% British (59.7% English, 4.3% Welsh, 10.5% Scotch-Irish, 5.3% Scottish, 5.8% Irish), 8.9% German, 3.1% Dutch, 2.1% French, and .3% Swedish
in 1790, the US white population was 85.6% British (59.7% English, 4.3% Welsh, 10.5% Scotch-Irish, 5.3% Scottish, 5.8% Irish), 8.9% German, 3.1% Dutch, 2.1% French, and .3% Swedish: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1919209 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/1919209
Mark Noll asserts that, in 1789, just ~35,000 (~0.89% of 3,929,214) of the US population were Catholic
Mark Noll asserts that, in 1789, just ~35,000 (~0.89% of 3,929,214) of the US population were Catholic: https://books.google.com/books?id=VGF3wbzzy9QC&pg=PA205 https://u1lib.org/book/1187003/08d827
Richard Middleton asserts that, in 1776, just ~40,000 (~1.6% of ~2,5000,000) of the US population were Catholic
Richard Middleton asserts that, in 1776, just ~40,000 (~1.6% of ~2,5000,000) of the US population were Catholic: https://books.google.com/books?id=w7cLqE0AAZYC
Us Naturalization Laws Over Time
1790: naturalization allowed to any "free white person" of "good character" who has resided in the USA for 2 years
1795: naturalization allowed to any "free white person" of "good moral character" who has resided in the USA for 5 years
1798: naturalization allowed to any "free white person" of "good moral character" who has resided in the USA for 14 years
1798: naturalization allowed to any "free white person" of "good moral character" who has resided in the USA for 14 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1798 http://library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/1%20stat%20566.pdf
1802: naturalization allowed to any "free white person" of "good moral character" who has resided in the USA for 5 years
1870: naturalizaton allowed to any person of "good moral character" who has resided in the USA for 5 years
Inclusivist Founder Quotes About "Posterity"
John Adams: immigrants must "shed their European skin" (ie, preference for privilegia) for American equal rights
John Adams: immigrants must "shed their European skin" (ie, preference for privilegia) for American equal rights: https://thefederalist.com/2014/08/18/what-john-quincy-adams-said-about-immigration-will-blow-your-mind/ https://archive.org/stream/nilesweeklyregis18balt#page/157/mode/1up Emigrants from Germany, therefore, or from elsewhere, coming here, are not to expect favors from the governments. They are to expect, if they choose to become citizens, equal rights with those of the natives of the country. They are to expect, if affluent, to possess the means of making their property productive, with moderation, and with safety; if indigent, but industrious, honest and frugal, the means of obtaining easy and comfortable subsistence for themselves and their families. [....] To one thing they must make up their minds, or, they will be disappointed in every expectation of happiness as Americans. They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity, rather than backward to their ancestors; they must be sure that whatever their own feelings may be, those of their children will cling to the prejudices of this country, and will partake of that proud spirit, not unmingled with disdain, which you have observed is remarkable in the general character of this people, and as perhaps belonging peculiarly to those of German descent, born in this country.
George Washington: the USA should be an "asylum to the virtuous and persecuted"
George Washington: the USA should be an "asylum to the virtuous and persecuted": https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-06-02-0266 I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong; but I shall be the more particularly happy, if this Country can be, by any means, useful to the Patriots of Holland, with whose situation I am peculiarly touched, and of whose public virtue I entertain a great opinion.
Exclusivist Founder Quotes About "Posterity"
Benjamin Franklin: Anglo-Saxons are white, "Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians", "Swedes", and "Germans" are "tawny" and should not be "increased in number"
Benjamin Franklin: Anglo-Saxons are white, "Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians", "Swedes", and "Germans" are "tawny" and should not be "increased in number": http://www.columbia.edu/~lmg21/ash3002y/earlyac99/documents/observations.html Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Compexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
John Jay: the USA should erect "a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics".
John Jay: the USA should erect "a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics". https://books.google.com/books?id=HBdxESrTkHsC&pg=PA33
Popular Support for the Act in Opinion Polls
74% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans supported the Hart-Celler act
Harris, 1965
Gallup, 1965
Anglo-Saxon Ruling Class in the Usa: Historical Counterexample
Brandt 1985: Anglo-Saxons including Theodore Roosevelt thought they were being genocided in the 1900's by importing Southern and Eastern European "degenerate racial stock"
Brandt 1985: Anglo-Saxons including Theodore Roosevelt thought they were being genocided in the 1900's by importing Southern and Eastern European "degenerate racial stock": https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1157185375&referer=brief_results https://u1lib.org/book/16528242/a69d44
Demographic Transition
following the demographic transition hypothesis, total fertility rates have dropped enormously worldwide
following the demographic transition hypothesis, total fertility rates have dropped enormously worldwide: https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
increased education spending and increased GDP per capita are strong, negative predictors of birth rates
increased education spending and increased GDP per capita are strong, negative predictors of birth rates: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X16303202
Projections of Fertility Worldwide
total fertility rates (TFR, lifetime children per woman) are projected to drop in every country to 5 or less by 2050, 3.5 or less by 2075, and 2.5 or less by 2100 (World Population Prospects 2019)
total fertility rates (TFR, lifetime children per woman) are projected to drop in every country to 5 or less by 2050, 3.5 or less by 2075, and 2.5 or less by 2100 (World Population Prospects 2019): https://population.un.org/wpp/Maps/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_Fertility_Rate,_1950_-_2100,_World_Population_Prospects_2015,_United_Nations.gif
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Projections of Fertility in the Usa
immigrant and nonwhite birth rates are projected to regress to the mean of 1.9 total fertility rate (TFR, lifetime children per woman) by 2060
Statistics: Overall
farm murders have never been lower than now, according to the South African Police Service (this number includes all murders of all people (owners, workers, visitors, family) on all farms, including smallholdings (but not nonfarming smallholdings)); note the gap of 2007-2009
SA has 35000 commercial farm owners, 10300 family members of commercial farm owners, 771000 commercial farm employees, and 4000000 smallholding farm owners
SA has 35000 commercial farm owners, 10300 family members of commercial farm owners, 771000 commercial farm employees, and 4000000 smallholding farm owners: https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/afriforums-own-farm-murder-stats-dont-support-their-claims-20180507 https://www.nda.agric.za/docs/statsinfo/Censcoagric2007.pdf https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/212633/2/Pienaar-Understanding%20the%20smallholder%20farmer%20in%20South%20Africa-1233.pdf The number of "farm murders" is 47; this includes smallholders. Using different definitions of "farmer" results in wildly different murder rates. Including just commercial farm owners, we get 134 murders per 100000. Including family, 103 per 100000. Including workers, 5.75 per 100000. Including smallholders, 0.975 per 100000. SA's murder rate is 34 per 100000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa
alternately, AfricaCheck argues that statistic calculation is impossible
alternately, AfricaCheck argues that statistic calculation is impossible: https://africacheck.org/2017/05/08/analysis-calculating-farm-murder-rate-sa-near-impossible/ Previously, Burger used Statistics South Africa s 2007 census of commercial agriculture s estimate of 32,375 full-time farmers to indicate the murder rate of farmers. This was how he calculated that there were 133 farm murders per 100,000 farmers, using the Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa s estimate of 39 farmers murdered in 2012. Chris van Zyl, the union s assistant general, told Africa Check that the recorded murders included farmers on non-commercial farms and agricultural smallholdings. Burger excluded family members, workers and visitors from the calculation. However, the 2007 figure of 32,375 full-time farmers is not appropriate to use, as the survey was only conducted on commercial farms registered to pay value-added tax (VAT). [....] The survey also estimated that there were an additional 10,272 family members involved in farming activities, 4,923 owners in partnership directly involved in farming activities and 770,933 paid employees. Including the full-time farmers, this added up to 818,503. If this farming population is used, the farm murder rate for 2015/16 would be 5.6 murders per 100,000 people living and/or working on farms registered to pay value-added tax. However, the total population of people living on farms and smallholdings, which do not pay value-added tax, will be larger.
Statistics: Race
the Boer-dominated Transvaal Agricultural Union's data on farm murders shows a very variable white farm murder count, making trend analysis difficult
according to the South African Police Service, 74% of farm murders were white and 83% were farm owners
according to the South African Police Service, 74% of farm murders were white and 83% were farm owners: https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-crime-statistics-for-2017-18/ In 2017/18, the police recorded 62 murders during 58 attacks. Of those murdered, 52 were the owners or occupiers of the farm/smallholding, 9 were farm workers and one was a farm manager. Forty-two murders took place on farms, 15 on smallholdings and one at a cattle post. The majority of the murder victims (46) were white.
Statistics: Reliability
reliability (or lack thereof) of the statistics
reliability (or lack thereof) of the statistics: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-05/fact-check-were-400-white-south-african-farmers-murdered-year/9591724 Dr de Kock told Fact Check that the police's farm murder count was reliable. But he said the "biggest problem" with the data was that police stations do not specifically record hate-based murders or "farm murders". "So a murder, wherever that murder happens, whatever the motive for that murder, will just be registered as a murder." Dr de Kock also pointed out that more than half of farm attacks or murders take place on "small holdings", usually plots of one or two hectares on the edge of towns and cities. "In many cases people don't actually farm on those," he said, explaining that while some people might farm on a small scale, "strictly speaking [they're] no commercial farmer". Dr Burger said the lack of regular government statistics on farm attacks and murders makes it "extremely difficult to accurately define the extent of the problem". But he also said the union works hard to ensure the credibility of its data, which he relies on himself. And according to Dr Burger, murder statistics reported by different groups tended to be similar.
No Evidence That Farm Attacks Are Motivated by Race
2003 South African Human Rights Commission conclusion
2008 South African Human Rights Commission conclusion
2015 South African Human Rights Commission conclusion
2015 South African Human Rights Commission conclusion: https://www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/SAHRC%20SAFETY%20AND%20SECURITY%20IN%20FARM%20COMMUNITIES%202015%20pdf.pdf The Commission unequivocally states that the causes for 'farm attacks and murders' is not race. The statemetn is made bearing in mind all research conducted in previous hearings and governmetn commissions of inquiries. Racial tensions have been present in South Africa for many decades and continue to be the case in democratic South Africa. [.....] Safety and security challenges persist in farming communities. Violence in farming communities is not based on the ground of race but reflects a reality where issues of racial segregation, land tenure, and economic [dis]empowerment provide the context for considering the root causes of crime which occur in farming communities. In addition, the Commission notes that the term "farm attacks and/or murder" i[s] inappropriate.
Genocide Watch Is Not Credible
Genocide Watch has no formal methodology for its claims
Eff Polls Very Poorly
the EFF has done poorly in opinion polling
Eff Was Condemned by Anc
the EFF has been condemned by the ANC
Background: Eisenhower 1954 Plan
Herbert Brownell, Attorney General under Eisenhower, announced in 1954 (!) that only immigrants who posed a risk to national security, to public safety, or of fleeing their trial would be detained
Herbert Brownell, Attorney General under Eisenhower, announced in 1954 (!) that only immigrants who posed a risk to national security, to public safety, or of fleeing their trial would be detained: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/ag/legacy/2011/09/12/11-11-1954.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/852279875858333696/11-11-1954.pdf
as a result, the number of people in immigration detention fell dramatically: in 1955, there were just four (!!) people in immigration detention seeking entry to the US
as a result, the number of people in immigration detention fell dramatically: in 1955, there were just four (!!) people in immigration detention seeking entry to the US: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/ag/legacy/2011/09/12/01-26-1955.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/941886234719035452/01-26-1955.pdf
the policy was so notable that in 1958 the Supreme Court claimed that "this policy [of non-detention] reflects the humane qualities of an enlightened civilization"
the policy was so notable that in 1958 the Supreme Court claimed that "this policy [of non-detention] reflects the humane qualities of an enlightened civilization": https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/357/185.html https://archive.ph/wip/jtzWg
Background: Start of Modern Mass Detention
Minian 2018: from 1954 to 1980, border crossers were routinely released on parole -- not detained! -- and expected to return to court for their immigration hearing; that changed in 1981, as a response to the Mariel Boatlift
Minian 2018: from 1954 to 1980, border crossers were routinely released on parole -- not detained! -- and expected to return to court for their immigration hearing; that changed in 1981, as a response to the Mariel Boatlift: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/sunday/border-detention-tear-gas-migrants.html https://archive.ph/NeEXv
Background: Scope of Internment
Kassie 2019: the system of deterrence via the pain of extended detention is uniquely modern: On an average day in 1980, just 3,000 people were in detainment. In 2019, over 50,000 were
Kassie 2019: the system of deterrence via the pain of extended detention is uniquely modern: On an average day in 1980, just 3,000 people were in detainment. In 2019, over 50,000 were: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/detained-us-largest-immigrant-detention-trump https://archive.ph/gTSLd
Worldwide Comparison: Biggest
Kassie 2019
Inhumane Purpose
Grewal 2020: immigration detention on this scale is new and inhumane. It is illegally designed to punish immigrants -- as deterrence against immigration
Grewal 2020: immigration detention on this scale is new and inhumane. It is illegally designed to punish immigrants -- as deterrence against immigration: https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/biden-can-end-the-mass-detention-of-immigrants/ https://archive.ph/wip/YHD7G
Ineffective Outcomes
Serwer 2021: if anything, the fact that border crossings surged under Trump, during the draconian COVID restrictions, shows that "inflicting as much pain as possible on migrants to deter others from coming" does not work
Serwer 2021: if anything, the fact that border crossings surged under Trump, during the draconian COVID restrictions, shows that "inflicting as much pain as possible on migrants to deter others from coming" does not work: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/which-border-crisis/618420/
Private Operators: Vast Majority
Ryo et al 2018: in 2015, over 2/3 of detained migrants were held in privately-operated facilites -- known for having worse conditions and worse legal recourse
Rural Areas: Vast Majority
Ryo et al 2018: in 2015, nearly 2/3 of detained migrants were held in facilites outside urban areas -- with much worse access to family and legal aid
Alternatives to Detention: List
ACLU 2019
Alternatives to Detention: Human Rights Benefits
ACLU 2019
Alternatives to Detention: Efficacy
ACLU 2014: in 2013, the sole ICE alternative to detention program was run by Behavioral Interventions, a for-profit private firm; BI reported a 99.6% rate of court attendance in its 40k non-detained docket and a cost of $.17 to $17 per day (10-1000x cheaper than detention, at $170/day)
ACLU 2014: in 2013, the sole ICE alternative to detention program was run by Behavioral Interventions, a for-profit private firm; BI reported a 99.6% rate of court attendance in its 40k non-detained docket and a cost of $.17 to $17 per day (10-1000x cheaper than detention, at $170/day): https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/aclu_atd_fact_sheet_final_v.2.pdf
The Pilot Alternative: Family Case Management Program (FCMP)
When the US did a trial program very similar to this proposal it was extremely successful. That's because mass detention is not just inhumane, it's unnecessary! Even if we wanted to charge and try every person who crossed the border, very few would need to be detained for the months until their trial. Virtually all of those released from detention showed up to court
When the US did a trial program very similar to this proposal it was extremely successful. That's because mass detention is not just inhumane, it's unnecessary! Even if we wanted to charge and try every person who crossed the border, very few would need to be detained for the months until their trial. Virtually all of those released from detention showed up to court: https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/190925acluhousejudiciaryicedetentionstatementforrecord.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/852284495126331452/190925acluhousejudiciaryicedetentionstatementforrecord.pdf
Obser 2019
The Problem
CHGO = civilian household gun ownership
CHGO = civilian household gun ownership
[1] CHGO has many, large negative health outcomes: Higher suicide, higher homicide, higher accidents, associated economic costs
[1] CHGO has many, large negative health outcomes: Higher suicide, higher homicide, higher accidents, associated economic costs
[2] CHGO has few, small positive health outcomes: Individual hunting, individual target practice
[2] CHGO has few, small positive health outcomes: Individual hunting, individual target practice
[3] CHGO has little impact on outcomes for democracy, freedom, worker power, and minority power
[3] CHGO has little impact on outcomes for democracy, freedom, worker power, and minority power
The Solutions: Consumer Side
[1] Short-term: Legalize most or all drugs, end poverty via welfare, shift justice system from retributive to rehabilitative: Reduce violent crime in general, reducing gun deaths
[1] Short-term: Legalize most or all drugs, end poverty via welfare, shift justice system from retributive to rehabilitative: Reduce violent crime in general, reducing gun deaths
[2] Short-term: Make gun licenses mandatory for new gun purchases, waiting periods mandatory: Significantly reduce suicide and homicide by delaying purchase, and overall gun levels by increasing difficulty of purchase (6 states: DC, CA, WA, IL, MA, NY)
[2] Short-term: Make gun licenses mandatory for new gun purchases, waiting periods mandatory: Significantly reduce suicide and homicide by delaying purchase, and overall gun levels by increasing difficulty of purchase (6 states: DC, CA, WA, IL, MA, NY)
[3] Short-term: Make gun safes mandatory for new gun purchases: Enormously reduce household gun theft, which is the primary source of illegal guns
[3] Short-term: Make gun safes mandatory for new gun purchases: Enormously reduce household gun theft, which is the primary source of illegal guns
[4] Short-term: Enact domestic violence restraining/protection order (DVRO or DVPO) gun relinquishment laws: Significantly reduce intimate partner homicide, the 2nd largest category of gun violence
[4] Short-term: Enact domestic violence restraining/protection order (DVRO or DVPO) gun relinquishment laws: Significantly reduce intimate partner homicide, the 2nd largest category of gun violence
[5] Short-term: Enact extreme risk protection order (ERPO) gun relinquishment laws: Allows family members, police to petition a court that someone's firearms present a risk to themselves or others; Significantly reduce suicide, may reduce mass shootings
[5] Short-term: Enact extreme risk protection order (ERPO) gun relinquishment laws: Allows family members, police to petition a court that someone's firearms present a risk to themselves or others; Significantly reduce suicide, may reduce mass shootings
[6] Short-term: Prohibit gun purchases among people under 21: 70% of murder occurs before offenders reach 30 years old; restricting guns from younger people may significantly reduce homicide
[6] Short-term: Prohibit gun purchases among people under 21: 70% of murder occurs before offenders reach 30 years old; restricting guns from younger people may significantly reduce homicide
[7] Long-term: Shift ownership entirely from CHGO to community armories: Maintain right to bear arms while reducing likelihood of theft, suicide, or homicide
[7] Long-term: Shift ownership entirely from CHGO to community armories: Maintain right to bear arms while reducing likelihood of theft, suicide, or homicide
The Solutions: Producer Side
[8] Short-term: Increase taxes on civilian gun factories and fund voluntary gun buybacks: Reduces gun levels and is easily worth it (guns cause $176bn/yr in damages)
[8] Short-term: Increase taxes on civilian gun factories and fund voluntary gun buybacks: Reduces gun levels and is easily worth it (guns cause $176bn/yr in damages)
[9] Long-term: Prohibit commercial gun production: Requires less state coercion than seizing guns from houses and significantly reduces future gun supply
[9] Long-term: Prohibit commercial gun production: Requires less state coercion than seizing guns from houses and significantly reduces future gun supply
Good Existing Law
[0] Short-term: Enact serious crime gun relinquishment laws: Persons convicted of serious crimes (over 1y in prison) should be prohibited from gun ownership (49 states, Vermont does violent crime only)
[0] Short-term: Enact serious crime gun relinquishment laws: Persons convicted of serious crimes (over 1y in prison) should be prohibited from gun ownership (49 states, Vermont does violent crime only)
Health Harms: Deaths
CDC 2016: of the 2744248 American deaths, firearm suicides represent 1 in 120 (22938/2744248=0.836%), firearm homicides 1 in 190 (14415/2744248=0.525%), and other firearm injuries 1 in 2100 ((38658-22938-14415)/2744248=0.0476%)
CDC 2016: of the 2744248 American deaths, firearm suicides represent 1 in 120 (22938/2744248=0.836%), firearm homicides 1 in 190 (14415/2744248=0.525%), and other firearm injuries 1 in 2100 ((38658-22938-14415)/2744248=0.0476%): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_05.pdf
CDC 2018: of the 2839205 American deaths, firearm suicides represent 1 in 116 (24432/2839205=0.861%), firearm homicides 1 in 203 (13958/2839205=0.492%), and other firearm injuries 1 in 2103 ((39740-24432-13958)/2839205=0.0475%)
CDC 2018: of the 2839205 American deaths, firearm suicides represent 1 in 116 (24432/2839205=0.861%), firearm homicides 1 in 203 (13958/2839205=0.492%), and other firearm injuries 1 in 2103 ((39740-24432-13958)/2839205=0.0475%): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/nvsr69-13-508.pdf
Health Harms: Victims Disproportionately Live in Poor, Single-Male Areas
Kim 2019: a 1-standard-deviation increase of % of people on cash welfare correlates with a 10% higher risk of firearm homicide; % of people in poverty ~25%; and % males living alone 12%; higher gun violence also correlated with lower social mobility
Kim 2019: a 1-standard-deviation increase of % of people on cash welfare correlates with a 10% higher risk of firearm homicide; % of people in poverty ~25%; and % males living alone 12%; higher gun violence also correlated with lower social mobility: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002978 https://sci-hub.se/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002978 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811032114560630835/kim2019.pdf
Economic Harms: Overall (Including Indirect Costs)
Miller 2015: firearm injury costs are $174.1-229 billion per year
Miller 2015: firearm injury costs are $174.1-229 billion per year: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/true-cost-of-gun-violence-in-america/ https://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/sites/childrenssafetynetwork.org/files/TheCostofGunViolence.pdf
Miller s calculation for indirect costs, based on jury awards, values the average statistical life harmed by gun violence at about $6.2 million.
Economic Harms: Hospitalization (Including Indirect Costs)
Lee 2014: direct and indirect costs to victims of firearm injury hospitalization alone are $17.7 billion per year
Economic Harms: Hospitalization (Only Direct)
firearm injury hospitalization costs are $911 million per year
firearm injury hospitalization costs are $911 million per year: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0209896 https://sci-hub.se/10.1371/journal.pone.0209896 Of patients discharged following a firearm injury, 15.6% were readmitted within 6 months. The average annual cost of inpatient hospitalizations for firearm injury was over $911 million, 9.5% of which was due to readmissions. Medicare and Medicaid covered 45.2% of total costs for the 5 years, and uninsured patients were responsible for 20.1%.
firearm injury hospitalization costs are $734.6 million per year
Economic Gains: Overall (Including Indirect Gains)
firearm manufacture indirect economic activity is $51.4 billion per year (industry estimate)
Economic Gains: Overall (Only Direct)
firearm manufacture direct revenue is $16.8 billion per year
International Comparison
Matthews 2017: the United States is uniquely lethal (from official homicide counts), but not uniquely violent (from surveys of self-reported victimization)
Causal: Right to Carry Increased Violent Crime
Donohue 2019: relative to synthetic controls: right to carry laws caused a ~15% higher overall violent crime rates 10 years after adoption
Schell et al 2020: Bayesian modelling: 7 years after implementing a right to carry law, firearm homicides increased by by ~2%, though this result is not significant
Causal: Stand Your Ground Increased Homicide
Schell et al 2020: Bayesian modelling: 7 years after implementing a Stand Your Ground law, firearm homicides increased by by ~5%, though this result is not significant
Causal: Concealed Carry Increased Violent Crime
Siegel et al 2019: differences-in-differences
Causal: Waiting Periods Reduced Homicides and Suicides
Luca 2017: the 1994 Brady Act imposed a new handgun waiting period of 5 days in about 1/3 of states, which caused a decrease (in the Brady period, 1990-1998) of overall homicide by 14.5% and overall suicide by 3.6%; in the 1970-2014 period, waiting periods for handguns of 2-7 days correlated with reduced overall homicides by 13.2% and overall suicides by 7.0%
Luca 2017: the 1994 Brady Act imposed a new handgun waiting period of 5 days in about 1/3 of states, which caused a decrease (in the Brady period, 1990-1998) of overall homicide by 14.5% and overall suicide by 3.6%; in the 1970-2014 period, waiting periods for handguns of 2-7 days correlated with reduced overall homicides by 13.2% and overall suicides by 7.0%: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/46/12162 https://sci-hub.se/10.1073/pnas.1619896114 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811012489529131038/luca2017.pdf Tables 1 and 2 also show that waiting periods have no significant effect on non-gun homicides, suggesting that people subject to waiting period laws do not substitute other means of committing homicide.
Correlation: Before and After
Webster Crifasi Vernick 2014: before-after rate comparison (not DID, weak method): repeal of Missouri's permit to purchase law correlated with 16% more murder per person (0.93 per 100k per year)
Webster Crifasi Vernick 2014: before-after rate comparison (not DID, weak method): repeal of Missouri's permit to purchase law correlated with 16% more murder per person (0.93 per 100k per year): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-014-9865-8 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11524-014-9865-8 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/980576221387685938/webster2014.pdf
Matzopoulos Thompson Myers 2014: gun control in South Africa correlated with homicide reductions in 5 South African cities by ~2.5% per year, saving ~4700 lives
Correlation: State Laws
Fleegler 2013: more laws on firearms are correlated with fewer firearms per capita and fewer firearm deaths per capita
Correlation: State Gun Prevalence
Siegel 2014: firearm prevalence 1981-2010 significantly positively correlates with firearm homicide and overall homicide, after controlling for age, gender, race, urbanity, education, poverty, unemployment, income, income inequality, alcohol consumption, property crime, violent crime, hate crime, divorce, suicide, and incarceration
Siegel 2014: firearm prevalence 1981-2010 significantly positively correlates with firearm homicide and overall homicide, after controlling for age, gender, race, urbanity, education, poverty, unemployment, income, income inequality, alcohol consumption, property crime, violent crime, hate crime, divorce, suicide, and incarceration: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302042 https://sci-hub.se/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302042 [W]e controlled for the following state-level factors that have been identified as related to homicide rates and might also be related to firearm ownership rates: proportion of young adults (aged 15---29 years), proportion of young men (aged 15---29 years), proportion of Blacks, proportion of Hispanics, level of urbanization, educational attainment, poverty status, unemployment, median household income, income inequality (the Gini ratio), per capita alcohol consumption, nonhomicide violent crime rate (aggravated assault, robbery, forcible rape), nonviolent (property) crime rate (burglary, larceny or theft, and motor vehicle theft), hate crime rate, divorce rate, region, incarceration rate, and suicide rate.
firearm prevalence 2001-2002 and 2004 significantly positively correlates with overall homicide after controlling for year, household income, gender, race, age, education, urbanity, poverty, population density, region, and neighboring states
firearm prevalence 2001-2002 and 2004 significantly positively correlates with overall homicide after controlling for year, household income, gender, race, age, education, urbanity, poverty, population density, region, and neighboring states: https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(15)00072-0/pdf https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.amepre.2015.02.008
firearm prevalence 1981-2013 significantly positively correlates with firearm homicide and insignificantly with nonfirearm homicide (implying overall increase in homicide), after controlling for age, gender, race, region, urbanity, education, poverty, unemployment, household income, income inequality, alcohol consumption, nonviolent crime, hate crime, divorce, suicide, and incarceration
firearm prevalence 1981-2013 significantly positively correlates with firearm homicide and insignificantly with nonfirearm homicide (implying overall increase in homicide), after controlling for age, gender, race, region, urbanity, education, poverty, unemployment, household income, income inequality, alcohol consumption, nonviolent crime, hate crime, divorce, suicide, and incarceration: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/vio.2015.0047 https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/vio.2015.0047 Siegel et al. recently created an improved proxy measure for state-level firearm ownership, which increases the correlation with the survey-generated estimates of household firearm prevalence to 0.95 (Siegel et al. 2014b). [....] [W]e controlled for the following state-level factors: proportion of young adults (ages 15 29), proportion of the state population that is young males (ages 15 29), proportion of state population identifying as black or as Hispanic, region of the United States, level of urbanization, educational attainment, poverty status, unemployment, median household income, income inequality (the Gini ratio), per-capita alcohol consumption, nonviolent (property) crime rate, hate crime rate, divorce rate, suicide rate, and incarceration rate.
Correlation: County Gun Prevalence
firearm prevalence correlates with overall violent crime
firearm prevalence correlates with overall violent crime: http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/jpj_firearm_ownership.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20171013095732/http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/jpj_firearm_ownership.pdf The current analysis used suicide by firearm as a proxy for firearm ownership. Examining violent crime, homicide, rape, robbery, and assault for 1,997 counties in the United States, the findings indicate that increased prevalence of firearms was associated with increased violent crime, homicide, rape, robbery, and assault. The results of this study suggest that a decrease in prevalence of firearms has the potential to decrease violent crime in the United States.Control variables used: region (Northeast, South, Midwest, West), Beale codes (rural, urban-adjacent, urban), residential mobility, ethnic heterogeneity, female-headed households, poverty rate, unemployment rate, population at risk (youth) rate, population age, population density
General Gun Policy
higher gun ownership & looser gun laws correlate with higher mass shootings
higher gun ownership & looser gun laws correlate with higher mass shootings: https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l542
Mass shootings were defined as independent events in which four or more people were killed by a firearm. Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation s Uniform Crime Reporting System from 1998-2015 were used to calculate annual rates of mass shootings in each state. Mass shooting events and rates were further separated into those where the victims were immediate family members or partners (domestic) and those where the victims had other relationships with the perpetrator (non-domestic).
^ another table: higher gun ownership & looser gun laws correlate with higher mass shootings
^ another table: higher gun ownership & looser gun laws correlate with higher mass shootings: https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l542
Firearm Type
de Jager Goralnick McCarty 2018: higher fatalities and higher woundings occur in active shooter incidents with a semiautomatic rifle than those without
de Jager Goralnick McCarty 2018: higher fatalities and higher woundings occur in active shooter incidents with a semiautomatic rifle than those without: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2702134 https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/jama.2018.11009
Magazine Type: Correlational
Klarevas 2019: controlling for demographics, bans on large-capacity magazines correlated with 0.21x as many high-fatality mass shootings (-3.660) in a given state
Klarevas 2019: controlling for demographics, bans on large-capacity magazines correlated with 0.21x as many high-fatality mass shootings (-3.660) in a given state: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305311 https://sci-hub.se/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305311 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/867278397292675102/klarevas2019.pdf high-fatality mass shooting: 6 or more deaths; LCM bans: more than 10 bullets in HI, MD, MS, CA, NY, DC, CN; 15 in NJ, CO, VT; "We focused on high-fatality mass shootings the deadliest and most disturbing of such incidents which are defined as intentional crimes of gun violence with 6 or more victims shot to death, not including the perpetrators."
Red Flag Laws and Extreme Risk Protection Orders (Erpos)
Mukherjee 2020: the vast majority of mass shootings (141 of 167, 1077/1202 deaths, 1908/1962 injuries) were preceded by threats reported to police, suicide attempts, and other activities covered under red flag laws
Mukherjee 2020: the vast majority of mass shootings (141 of 167, 1077/1202 deaths, 1908/1962 injuries) were preceded by threats reported to police, suicide attempts, and other activities covered under red flag laws: https://www.theviolenceproject.org/research/five-gun-reforms-could-prevent-most-mass-shootings/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/if-gun-laws-were-enacted/ https://archive.ph/4v8uT
todo scrape xxx
todo scrape xxx: https://everytownresearch.org/report/extreme-risk-laws-save-lives/ RED FLAG LAWS REDUCE FIREARM SUICIDES. 14% Connecticut saw a 14% reduction in the firearm suicide rate. 7.5% Indiana saw a 7.5% reduction in the firearm suicide rate. After Connecticut increased its enforcement of its Extreme Risk law,20 one study found the law to be associated with a 14 percent reduction in the state s firearm suicide rate.21 While it is always hard to measure events that didn t happen, an important study in Connecticut found that one suicide was averted for approximately every 11 gun removals carried out under the law.22 In the 10 years since Indiana passed its Extreme Risk law in 2005,23 the state s firearm suicide rate decreased by 7.5 percent.24 Like Connecticut, another study estimated that Indiana s Extreme Risk law averted one suicide for approximately every 10 gun removals.25
Perpetrator Demographics
Peterson and Densley 2019: the vast majority of mass shooters experienced early childhood trauma; almost all mass shooters had a crisis point in weeks/months before shooting (often communicated to others via specific threats or suicidal plans); most shooters studied other mass shooters; 80% of school shooters got weapons from family members
Peterson and Densley 2019: the vast majority of mass shooters experienced early childhood trauma; almost all mass shooters had a crisis point in weeks/months before shooting (often communicated to others via specific threats or suicidal plans); most shooters studied other mass shooters; 80% of school shooters got weapons from family members: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-04/el-paso-dayton-gilroy-mass-shooters-data https://archive.is/iHht3
One step needs to be depriving potential shooters of the means to carry out their plans. Potential shooting sites can be made less accessible with visible security measures such as metal detectors and police officers. And weapons need to be better controlled, through age restrictions, permit-to-purchase licensing, universal background checks, safe storage campaigns and red-flag laws measures that help control firearm access for vulnerable individuals or people in crisis.
Theory: Model of Suicide
Florentine 2010: most suicides fit a 5-step model (triggers distress ideation attempt success/failure); restricting physical access to methods of suicide can reduce suicide effectiveness
Florentine 2010: most suicides fit a 5-step model (triggers distress ideation attempt success/failure); restricting physical access to methods of suicide can reduce suicide effectiveness: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953610001115 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.01.029 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/814577141504278588/florentine2010.pdf "Where possible, it would always be preferable to intervene at earlier stages, providing psychological and social support to reduce an individual s suffering as well as their suicide risk."
Causation: Israel Defense Force
Lubin 2010: the total suicide rate of 18-21 year old soldiers decreased 40% after Israel prohibited them from taking their firearms home on the weekends; this decrease was almost entirely on weekends
Lubin 2010: the total suicide rate of 18-21 year old soldiers decreased 40% after Israel prohibited them from taking their firearms home on the weekends; this decrease was almost entirely on weekends: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1521/suli.2010.40.5.421 https://sci-hub.se/10.1521/suli.2010.40.5.421 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811236989080174592/lubin2010.pdf n=117 suicides over 5 years """Following the change in policy total suicide rate decreased by 40%, from an average of 28 per year during 2003-2005 to an average of 16.5 per year in 2007-2008 (T= 3.35, p = .04). Most of this decrease in suicide rates was due to a decrease in suicide using firearms over the weekend, from an average of 10 per year (2003-2005) to an average of 3 per year (2007-2008) (T= 17.44, p<.001). There were no significant changes in rates of suicide during weekdays.
[M]any IDF soldiers go home over the weekend, and took their weapons with them. The IDF changed its policy in 2006, dictating that soldiers should leave their weapons at their bases when headed home for weekend leave. This policy change was just part of a suicide prevention program that also included dissemination of information regarding suicide prevention, and a declaration by the IDF chief of staff that suicide prevention was one of the major goals of the IDF for that year.
Causation: Permit to Purchase Laws
Crifasi 2015: having a law requiring a permit to purchase (PTP) handguns in Missouri (repealed) and Connecticut (enacted) significantly decreased overall suicide
Crifasi 2015: having a law requiring a permit to purchase (PTP) handguns in Missouri (repealed) and Connecticut (enacted) significantly decreased overall suicide: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515002297 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.07.013 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811125632985333760/crifasi2015.pdf
Connecticut's firearm suicide rates were 15.4% lower than that of its synthetic control during the 10-year post-law period. [....] Connecticut's non-firearm suicide rates, however, were 11.9% lower during the post-law period than predicted by the synthetic control.
Correlation: Meta-Study
Angelmeyer 2014: across 14 studies, having a firearm in the house was associated with a 3.24x increase of suicide risk and 2x increase of homicide risk
Correlation: Mortality Follow-Back Surveys
Studdert et al 2020: among the 1,458,000 Californians who died in 2004-2016, males who newly purchased a handgun were 3.3x more likely to die from suicide and females 7.2x; among those who purchased a handgun, about 3 in 10,000 died from firearm suicide within 10 days after purchase and 3 in 1,000 within 12 years; among those who did not, just 3 in 10,000 died from firearm suicide within 12 years
Studdert et al 2020: among the 1,458,000 Californians who died in 2004-2016, males who newly purchased a handgun were 3.3x more likely to die from suicide and females 7.2x; among those who purchased a handgun, about 3 in 10,000 died from firearm suicide within 10 days after purchase and 3 in 1,000 within 12 years; among those who did not, just 3 in 10,000 died from firearm suicide within 12 years: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1916744 http://sci-hub.se/10.1056/NEJMsa1916744 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811262154476748840/studdert2020.pdf
Grassel 2003: among the 213,000 Californians who died in 1998, those who newly bought a handgun in 1996-98 were 6.8x more likely to die from suicide overall but not significantly more likely to die from non-gun suicide
Grassel 2003: among the 213,000 Californians who died in 1998, those who newly bought a handgun in 1996-98 were 6.8x more likely to die from suicide overall but not significantly more likely to die from non-gun suicide: https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/1/48.full https://sci-hub.se/10.1136/ip.9.1.48 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811127582732714035/grassel2003.pdf
Dahlberg 2004: in a mortality followback survey, proxy respondents were 10.4x as likely to report that male suicide victims had had a firearm in the house
Dahlberg 2004: in a mortality followback survey, proxy respondents were 10.4x as likely to report that male suicide victims had had a firearm in the house: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858 http://sci-hub.se/10.1093/aje/kwh309 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811123110701957120/dahlberg2004.pdf 1993 National Mortality Followback Survey, which is based on a nationally representative 10 percent systematic sample of decedents aged 15 years or older in the United States
Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different method (adjusted odds ratio = 31.1, 95% confidence interval: 19.5, 49.6).
Correlation: State Gun Prevalence
Miller 2007: a 1% increase of firearm prevalence correlates with a 1.4% increase of overall suicide, controlling for poverty, urbanization, unemployment, mental illness, and drug and alcohol dependence and abuse
Miller 2007: a 1% increase of firearm prevalence correlates with a 1.4% increase of overall suicide, controlling for poverty, urbanization, unemployment, mental illness, and drug and alcohol dependence and abuse: https://insights.ovid.com/crossref?an=00005373-200704000-00031 https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/01.ta.0000198214.24056.40 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811127373805125652/miller2007.pdf
Not Causal Link: Guns Don't Appear to Cause Suicidality
among 9282 US adults between 2001 and 2003, self-reported firearm ownership was not correlated with self-reported mental health, self-reported suicidal ideation, or self-reported serious suicide attempt
among 9282 US adults between 2001 and 2003, self-reported firearm ownership was not correlated with self-reported mental health, self-reported suicidal ideation, or self-reported serious suicide attempt: https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/15/3/183.short https://sci-hub.se/10.1136/ip.2008.021352 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/700005468239691826/miller2009.pdf
among 9282 US adults between 2001 and 2003, self-reported firearm ownership was not correlated with suicidal ideation or suicide planning
Method Restriction: Examples
Clarke 1988: the near-total removal of carbon monoxide from British town gas (switching from coal gas to natural gas) corresponded with the near-total elimination of suicides by gassing
Clarke 1988: the near-total removal of carbon monoxide from British town gas (switching from coal gas to natural gas) corresponded with the near-total elimination of suicides by gassing: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/449144 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/449144 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811641039231254558/clarke1988.pdf
Florentine 2010: changing the packaging for paracetamol and limiting the amount purchasable appears to have cut paracetamol suicides by 64% with no substitution
Florentine 2010: changing the packaging for paracetamol and limiting the amount purchasable appears to have cut paracetamol suicides by 64% with no substitution: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953610001115 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.01.029 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/814577141504278588/florentine2010.pdf
[P]rior to 1998, paracetamol had been implicated in up to half of intentional overdose attempts (Hawton et al., 1997). In 1998, legislation was introduced in the United Kingdom that required analgesics to be blister packaged and reduced pack sizes to non-lethal doses. Limits on the number of packs that could be bought in a single transaction were also enforced, the aim being to reduce household supplies of paracetamol which might be available for impulsive overdose. It is particularly interesting that this relatively simple intervention appeared to have a considerable impact on suicide rates, resulting in a 64% reduction of severe paracetamol overdoses and a 21% reduction of overall paracetamol overdoses (Turvill, Burroughs, & Moore, 2000). These changes persisted, with little evidence of substitution over three years following the restriction, resulting in the estimated prevention of approximately 200 deaths (Hawton, 2002).
Suicide Attempts: Efficacy by Method
Spicer 2000: suicides by firearm are much more effective
Spicer 2000: suicides by firearm are much more effective: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446422/ https://sci-hub.se/10.2105/ajph.90.12.1885 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875161976945393684/spicer2000.pdf The present study is, to our knowledge, the first multistate epidemiologic examination of pooled E-coded discharge data and vital statistics data. We integrated these data into a single epidemiologic analysis of nearly 65000 medically identified suicide attempts and 11000 suicides to compute annual incidence of suicide acts and case fatality rates in 8 states, by victim age, sex, and race and by method used. [....] Choice of method plays a role in the lethality of the suicide act. Firearm is the most lethal method and drug overdose/poison ingestion the least lethal.
Soffen 2016: firearms are more fatal than other methods; if the US had comparable firearm prevalence as other countries, it would have 20-38% fewer suicides:
Soffen 2016: firearms are more fatal than other methods; if the US had comparable firearm prevalence as other countries, it would have 20-38% fewer suicides:: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/wonkblog/suicide-rates/ http://archive.is/mAcn3
Suicide Attempts: High Impulsivity
Spicer 2000: just 8.8% of suicide attempts are fatal, and fatality increases with age
Baca-Garcia 2001: most suicides are impulsive: among 478 people who attempted suicide in Madrid, 55% were impulsive (no preparation, no contemplation), 28% were intermediate (some preparation, some contemplation), and 17% were non-impulsive extensive preparation, 3+ hours of contemplation); higher lethality correlated with lower impulsivity
Baca-Garcia 2001: most suicides are impulsive: among 478 people who attempted suicide in Madrid, 55% were impulsive (no preparation, no contemplation), 28% were intermediate (some preparation, some contemplation), and 17% were non-impulsive extensive preparation, 3+ hours of contemplation); higher lethality correlated with lower impulsivity: https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/depression/suicide/prospective-study-paradoxical-relationship-between/ https://europepmc.org/article/med/11488369 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/867566910765269032/baca-garcia2001.pdf
More than half of the attempts were impulsive (55%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 51% to 59%), approximately one fourth of the attempts had an intermediate level of impulsivity (28%; 95% CI, 24% to 32%), and approximately one sixth of the attempts were not impulsive (17%, 95% CI, 13% to 21%). There was an inverse association between the impulsivity and lethality of the suicide attempt (chi2 = 62.639, df = 6, p < .0001). The most impulsive attempts tended to result in less morbidity, while the less impulsive attempts tended to be more lethal.
Simon 2001: 24% of survivors in central Houston reported taking less than 5 minutes between making the decision and carrying out the act
Suicide Attempts: Low Repeat Attempt Rate
Seiden 1978: few people who attempt suicide once end up dying from suicide: a very low rate (~6%) of those who attempted and failed to kill themselves by jumping off a bridge had killed themselves in the next 15 years
Seiden 1978: few people who attempt suicide once end up dying from suicide: a very low rate (~6%) of those who attempted and failed to kill themselves by jumping off a bridge had killed themselves in the next 15 years: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1978.tb00587.x http://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1978.tb00587.x https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811124737350303774/seiden1978.pdf
Finally, in Table 13 we have the proportion of persons in each study group who subsequently committed suicide or died from other violent causes. What this table discloses is that after 26-plus years the vast majority of GGB [Golden Gate Bridge] suicide attempters (about 94%) are still alive or have died from natural causes. The comparison group of hospital cases has had similar experiences; 89% are still alive or are dead from natural means after 15 years. Conversely, only five to seven percent killed themselves and some six to 11% had died from all violent causes combined. Even if we compensate for underenumeration by doubling our frequencies it still means that about 90% of the study subjects were alive or had come to a natural non-violent end.
Theory: Increased Production
ineffective because firms just increase productions
ineffective because firms just increase productions: http://www.bapress.ca/Journal/Gun%20Buybacks%20and%20Firm%20Behavior--%20Do%20Buyback%20Programs%20Really%20Reduce%20the%20Number%20of%20Guns.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20191110180037/http://www.bapress.ca/Journal/Gun%20Buybacks%20and%20Firm%20Behavior--%20Do%20Buyback%20Programs%20Really%20Reduce%20the%20Number%20of%20Guns.pdf Thus, any anticipated (repeated) buyback s impact on future stock levels of firearms depends critically on the commit ability of the durable-goods manufacturer, independent of the buyers reselling and arbitrage activities. Moreover, regardless of commitment ability, the model suggests the imperfectly competitive firms may, at least partially, counteract the buyback program, making any governmental buyback less effective at reducing future firearm stocks than expected.
Inefficacy
ineffective
ineffective: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.315 http://sci-hub.se/10.1350/ijps.2013.15.3.315 Despite the data and methodological improvements, the results of this study are largely consistent with extant empirical evidence showing little support for the effectiveness of gun buy-backs on violent crime. [....] The reduction that was found in gun robberies took several years to materialise. Thus, studies of a gun buy-back programme may require longer time frames before some level of success is achieved (Neill & Leigh, 2008).
ineffective, except reduction of gun accidents
Australia Buyback [Unformatted, Unread]
Leigh study 1
Leigh study 2
only suicides
didn't work because strong laws were already in place
Scope
In 2015, there were 9616 firearm homicides [1], 268 justified firearm homicides by private citizens [2], and 441 justified firearm homicides by law enforcement officers [3]. This suggests that (441+268)/(9616) = 7.3% of firearm homicides are justified. [1] Homicides by weapon
Surveys: Frequency: Very Low
Hemenway 2015: defensive gun use (attacking or threatening criminal) is rare: DGU occurred in just 0.9% of crimes with a victim
Hemenway 2015: defensive gun use (attacking or threatening criminal) is rare: DGU occurred in just 0.9% of crimes with a victim: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515001188 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.03.029 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811122658800173096/hemenway2015.pdf
Of over 14,000 incidents in which the victim was present, 127 (0.9%) involved a SDGU. SDGU was more common among males, in rural areas, away from home, against male offenders and against offenders with a gun.
Hemenway 2015: defensive gun use (attacking or threatening criminal) is weakly protective: DGU had no significant effect on victim injury rates (table 3c); DGU significantly reduced property loss relative to no defensive action, but not relative to other weapons or no weapon
Hemenway 2015: defensive gun use (attacking or threatening criminal) is weakly protective: DGU had no significant effect on victim injury rates (table 3c); DGU significantly reduced property loss relative to no defensive action, but not relative to other weapons or no weapon: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515001188 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.03.029 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811122658800173096/hemenway2015.pdf
After any protective action, 4.2% of victims were injured; after SDGU, 4.1% of victims were injured. In property crimes, 55.9% of victims who took protective action lost property, 38.5 of SDGU victims lost property, and 34.9% of victims who used a weapon other than a gun lost property.
Mortality Followback: Frequency: One City
Kellerman 1986: among 398 gun deaths from 1978 to 1983 in King County (Seattle and Bellevue), 9 were self-protection (1x), 12 were unintentional deaths (1.3x), 41 were criminal homicides (4.6x), and 333 were suicides (37.0x)
Kellerman 1986: among 398 gun deaths from 1978 to 1983 in King County (Seattle and Bellevue), 9 were self-protection (1x), 12 were unintentional deaths (1.3x), 41 were criminal homicides (4.6x), and 333 were suicides (37.0x): https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198606123142406 https://sci-hub.se/10.1056/NEJM198606123142406 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875168302555627520/kellermann1986.pdf
Surveys: Frequency: Why Hemenway > Kleck
why to prefer the NCVS data (from Hemenway) or Kellerman data over the Kleck/CDC type data
explanation: Kleck's data is self-reported, which introduces strong upward bias, according to a National Research Council report
explanation: Kleck's data is self-reported, which introduces strong upward bias, according to a National Research Council report: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/1861/understanding-and-preventing-violence-volume-1 A National Research Council report said that Kleck's estimates appeared to be exaggerated and that it was almost certain that "some of what respondents designate[d] as their own self-defense would be construed as aggression by others".[201]
Correlation: Homicide and Suicide
Dahlberg 2004: in a mortality followback survey, proxy respondents were 1.9x as likely to report that homicide victims had had a firearm in the house
Dahlberg 2004: in a mortality followback survey, proxy respondents were 1.9x as likely to report that homicide victims had had a firearm in the house: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858 http://sci-hub.se/10.1093/aje/kwh309 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811123110701957120/dahlberg2004.pdf 1993 National Mortality Followback Survey, which is based on a nationally representative 10 percent systematic sample of decedents aged 15 years or older in the United States
Intimate Partner Homicide: Framework: Model
Capaldi 2005: model of development of partner aggression
Intimate Partner Homicide: Causational: Policy
Raissan 2015: differences-in-differences results suggest that Gun Control Act expansion to prevent domestic violence misdemeanor convicts from possessing a firearm (DVRO) decreased gun homicides among female intimate partners by 17.3% and domestic children by 24.5% and had no effect on non-gun homicides
Raissan 2015: differences-in-differences results suggest that Gun Control Act expansion to prevent domestic violence misdemeanor convicts from possessing a firearm (DVRO) decreased gun homicides among female intimate partners by 17.3% and domestic children by 24.5% and had no effect on non-gun homicides: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.21857 https://sci-hub.se/10.1002/pam.21857 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/821952798345920582/raissian2015.pdf controls:
race, marital status, the state poverty rate, average household income, the AFDC/TANF maximum for a family of three (both in 1996 Dollars), the female to male employment ratio, the robbery crime rate, and other legal variables (described in text)
Intimate Partner Homicide: Causational: Mortality Followup
Wintermute 2003: women who purchased a handgun in 1991 had a rate of intimate partner homicide 2.3x higher, overall homicide 1.5x higher, and non-partner homicide insignificantly higher than women as a whole in California
Wintermute 2003: women who purchased a handgun in 1991 had a rate of intimate partner homicide 2.3x higher, overall homicide 1.5x higher, and non-partner homicide insignificantly higher than women as a whole in California: https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(03)70107-3/fulltext http://sci-hub.se/10.1067/mem.2003.66 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/821945909028978738/wintemute2003.pdf n1=11 deaths, n2=28181 handgun purchasers
Women who purchased handguns were at increased risk for intimate partner homicide (standardized mortality ratio [SMR]=2.30) but not for homicide involving other assailants (SMR=1.02), and they were at increased risk for homicide overall (SMR=1.45).
Wintermute 1999
Intimate Partner Homicide: Correlation at Victim Level
Smucker 2018: when IPH's occur with a gun, they are much more likely to end with the suicide of the murderer and with other, additional homicides
Smucker 2018: when IPH's occur with a gun, they are much more likely to end with the suicide of the murderer and with other, additional homicides: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-018-0252-8 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11524-018-0252-8 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/822182654916165732/smucker2018.pdf
Almost one-half of IPHs committed by men with guns ended with suicide. Male-perpetrated IPH incidents averaged 1.58 deaths if a gun was used, and 1.14 deaths otherwise.
Campbell 2003: women whose abuser had access to a gun were 5.4x more likely to die from intimate partner homicide
Bailey 1997: women who kept 1 or more guns in the house were 4.6x more likely to die from suicide, 3.4x more likely to die from homicide, and 7.2x more likely to die from intimate partner or relative homicide
Bailey 1997: women who kept 1 or more guns in the house were 4.6x more likely to die from suicide, 3.4x more likely to die from homicide, and 7.2x more likely to die from intimate partner or relative homicide: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/623145 https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/archinte.1997.00440280101009 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/821950836283408394/bailey1997.pdf Having 1 or more guns in the home was independently associated with suicide (adjusted OR, 4.6; 95% CI, 1.2-17.5), even after the effects of depression and living alone were taken into consideration.
"""Five risk factors were retained in the final multivariate model for all homicides. Independent risk factors included [...] having 1 or more guns in the home (adjusted OR, 3.4; 95% CI, 1.6-7.1)[.]
Homicide by spouse, lover, or close relative was strongly associated [...] keeping 1 or more guns (adjusted OR, 7.2; 95% CI, 1.9-27.1).
Intimate Partner Homicide: Correlation at State Level
Diez 2017: correlational evidence suggests that intimate partner homicide is ~9.7% lower in states which have domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) related firearm surrender laws
Zeoli 2010: correlational evidence suggests that intimate partner homicide is ~19% lower in cities which have domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) related firearm purchase access laws in 46 cities
Zeoli 2010: correlational evidence suggests that intimate partner homicide is ~19% lower in cities which have domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) related firearm purchase access laws in 46 cities: https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/16/2/90.full https://sci-hub.se/10.1136/ip.2009.024620 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/821830513673240607/zeoli2010.pdf firearm confiscation = "state laws allowing police officers to confiscate firearms from the scene of DV"
Vigdor 2006: correlational evidence suggests that intimate partner homicide is ~10% lower in states which have domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) purchase or possession laws
Zeoli 2018 (corrected): between 1980 and 2013, domestic violence restraining order (DVRO) firearm-prohibition laws were associated with 10% reductions in intimate partner homicide (IPH)
Intimate Partner Violence: Meta-Analysis
Zeoli 2016: there is no compelling evidence that gun ownership correlates with higher nonfatal intimate partner violence (IPV)
Zeoli 2016: among abusive relationships, abusers with access to a gun were more likely to be more violent than abusers without access to a gun
Surveys: Firearm Owner Demography
of Americans, 30% are gunowners, 11% live in a household with a gunowner, and 57% do not
of Americans, 30% are gunowners, 11% live in a household with a gunowner, and 57% do not: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/
Surveys: Firearm Control Is Popular
Barry 2019: firearm control proposals are popular
most firearm owners support most firearm control proposals
firearm control proposals are popular; firearm-expansion proposals are not
firearm control proposals are popular; firearm-expansion proposals are not: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/views-on-gun-policy/
firearm control proposals are popular even among firearm owners
Racism
symbolic racism predicts firearm ownership
symbolic racism predicts firearm ownership: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0077552 In wave 20 of the ANES, participants were asked to respond to a four-item scale drawn from the Symbolic Racism Scale [37]. Specifically, participants indicated the extent to which they agree (1=agree strongly to 5=disagree strongly) with statements such as Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class (reverse scored). Scores on the four items were coded so that high scores are indicative of elevated levels of symbolic racism. A test of the reliability of the scale showed the four items corresponded closely with each other as indicated by a Cronbach s alpha level of 0.8 and the emergence of a single factor from exploratory factor analysis of the scale. We utilized the average score across the four items to produce a scale ranging 1=lowest symbolic racism score, to 5=highest symbolic racism score.
higher opposition to gun regulations is predicted by higher symbolic racism, higher firearm ownership, higher libertarianism, lower egalitarianism, and lower income
higher opposition to gun regulations is predicted by higher symbolic racism, higher firearm ownership, higher libertarianism, lower egalitarianism, and lower income: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11109-015-9326-4 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11109-015-9326-4
Fear
conservatives feel greater personal control when imagining holding a firearm; liberals do not; conservatives feel that an armed civilian entering a public shooting makes the situation less chaotic, while liberals feel it makes it more chaotic
conservatives feel greater personal control when imagining holding a firearm; liberals do not; conservatives feel that an armed civilian entering a public shooting makes the situation less chaotic, while liberals feel it makes it more chaotic: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/695761 https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/695761
Ideology
firearm ownership increasingly predicts Republican vote
Intelligence
dumb white people and dumb black people own guns
guns don't prevent tyranny or protect freedom
revolutions are actually more likely in states with lower firearm ownership (this is almost certainly spurious -- poorer places have fewer guns and more revolutions. i just post it to make right-wingers mad lol)
revolutions are actually more likely in states with lower firearm ownership (this is almost certainly spurious -- poorer places have fewer guns and more revolutions. i just post it to make right-wingers mad lol): https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/owning-guns-doesnt-preserve-freedom/275287/
^ cato study: unformatted, unread
Correlational Studies: Laws and Fatal Shootings
Kivisto 2017: looser gun control laws correlate with higher fatal police shootings (several controls)
Kivisto 2017: looser gun control laws correlate with higher fatal police shootings (several controls): https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303770 https://sci-hub.se/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303770 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811020109237321768/kivisto2017.pdf controls: age; percentage of study population that was male, White, Black, Hispanic, unemployed, and college educated; and population density at the state level
Kivisto 2017: after controls, gun control laws about child and consumer safety and against gun trafficking were correlated with lower fatal police shootings:
Roman 2018: graph of the above
Correlational Studies: Prevalence and Fatal Police Shootings
Roman 2018: higher gun prevalence correlates with higher fatal police shootings (no controls)
Roman 2018: higher gun prevalence correlates with higher fatal police shootings (no controls): https://www.vox.com/2018/4/9/17205256/gun-violence-us-police-shootings
Hemenway 2019: a 1-standard-deviation increase of gun prevalence correlates with 1.4-1.5x higher fatal police shooting rates per resident and 1.3-1.5x per arrest
Hemenway 2019: a 1-standard-deviation increase of gun prevalence correlates with 1.4-1.5x higher fatal police shooting rates per resident and 1.3-1.5x per arrest: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-018-0313-z https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11524-018-0313-z https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/811112016092987434/hemenway2019.pdf gun prevalence proxied by firearm suicides as proportion of all suicides, or FS/S; controls for violent crime rate, racial composition, poverty rate, and urbanization
Stolen Firearms
based on surveys of firearm owners, ~460,000 firearms are stolen from individuals every year
based on surveys of firearm owners, ~460,000 firearms are stolen from individuals every year: https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/3/5/38.abstract https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/rsfjss/3/5/38.full.pdf Approximately 2.4 percent of gun owners (CI: 1.6 3.6) reported having had one or more stolen from them in the past five years, the mean number at 1.9 (a range of 1 to 6). Assuming that theft was evenly distributed across the years, we estimate that approximately 2.3 million guns were stolen over the past five years (five hundred thousand annually).
Hemenway Azrael Miller 2017: in 2015, based on a survey of 3949 firearm owners, ~380,000 firearms are stolen from individuals every year; gun owners who reported safely storing their guns were 3x less likely to report gun thefts
Hemenway Azrael Miller 2017: in 2015, based on a survey of 3949 firearm owners, ~380,000 firearms are stolen from individuals every year; gun owners who reported safely storing their guns were 3x less likely to report gun thefts: https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-017-0109-8 https://sci-hub.se/10.1186/s40621-017-0109-8 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/980582562101596190/hemenway2017.pdf
Among gun owners, 2.4% report having one or more guns stolen in the past 5 years (Table 1). The mean number of guns stolen per incident was 1.5(95% CI: 1.0,2.0). Using data from the April 2015 survey, we estimated that 22% of US adults are gun owners (Azrael et al. 2015), consistent with findings from the General Social Surveys from the University of Chicago s National Opinion Research Center (Smith and Son 2015). Using these results, and given approximately 242 million adults lived in the US (average for 2011 2015), we estimate that there were 1.2 million incidents of gun theft over a 5-year period, or about 250,000 incidents per year. With 1.5 guns stolen per incident, we estimate that approximately 380,000 guns (95% CI 260,000,510,000) were stolen per year.
based on FBI crime statistics, ~320,000 firearms are stolen from individuals and gun stores every year
based on FBI crime statistics, ~320,000 firearms are stolen from individuals and gun stores every year: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2017/07/25/436533/stolen-guns-america/ Gun theft is not a minor problem in the United States. According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during the four-year period from 2012 to 2015, nearly half a billion dollars worth of guns were stolen from individuals nationwide, amounting to an estimated 1.2 million guns. Twenty-two thousand guns were stolen from gun stores during this same period.
Causal Evidence: Decreases in Firearm Homicides After Child Access Prevention Laws
Schell et al 2020: Bayesian modelling: 7 years after implementing a child access prevention law, firearm homicides decreased by ~7%
Trafficking
guns are trafficked from states with weak gun laws to states with strong gun laws
guns are trafficked from states with weak gun laws to states with strong gun laws
guns are trafficked from states with weak gun laws to states with strong gun laws: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-laws-stop-at-state-lines-but-guns-dont
Policy
Collins et al 2018: guns flow from states with weak firearm laws to states with strong firearm laws; each additional law decreases by 1.56% the portion of firearms traced to a source in that state: (laws: dealer licensing for handguns, waiting periods, buyer licensing, registration of handgun sales, prohibition for violent misdemeanors, mandatory firearm relinquishment after prohibition, universal background checks, and straw purchase bans)
Collins et al 2018: guns flow from states with weak firearm laws to states with strong firearm laws; each additional law decreases by 1.56% the portion of firearms traced to a source in that state: (laws: dealer licensing for handguns, waiting periods, buyer licensing, registration of handgun sales, prohibition for violent misdemeanors, mandatory firearm relinquishment after prohibition, universal background checks, and straw purchase bans): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11524-018-0251-9 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11524-018-0251-9 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/980583619720523846/collins2018.pdf
unformatted, unread: firearm control is effective at reducing illegal firearm ownership and trafficking to other states
unformatted, unread: firearm control is effective at reducing illegal firearm ownership and trafficking to other states: https://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.5.01: Because an estimated 270 million guns are in private hands nationwide, effective control is said to be beyond reach (Azrael et al. 2017). But this futility claim is in our judgment based on a misunderstanding of how guns come to be used in criminal violence. Despite that the number of private guns is enough to arm every adult, the great majority of adults (78 percent) do not in fact own one. **The main concern should be less about the current stock of guns in private hands and more about the flow of guns: the ease of obtaining one for criminal purposes.** [....] Real-world markets tend to be a good deal messier than Economics 101 reveals, and underground markets particularly so. [....] **[T]he money price is not the only or necessarily the most important cost to obtaining a gun outside the formal market. Other types of transactions costs are relevant, including the search time required for the buyer and seller to find each other, the payments to a broker or other intermediary, and the risk of arrest.** [....] We report evidence suggesting that in some respects the underground market is sensitive to regulation. For example, **when Virginia adopted a one gun per month maximum on handgun sales to any one customer, that state s prominence as a source state in trafficking to Massachusetts and other states with relatively stringent regulations dropped sharply** (see Braga 2017).
Use in Crime
most firearm used in crimes come from household thefts
most firearm used in crimes come from household thefts: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-criminol-032317-092149 Guns are legal commodities, but violent offenders typically obtain their guns by illegal means. Our knowledge of these transactions comes primarily from trace data on guns recovered by the police and from occasional surveys of gun-involved offenders. **Because most guns used in crime are sourced from the stock of guns in private hands (rather than a purchase from a licensed dealer), the local prevalence of gun ownership appears to influence the transaction costs and the proportions of robberies and assaults committed with guns rather than knives or other weapons**. Nonetheless, regulations that govern licensed dealers have been linked to trafficking patterns and in some cases to the use of guns in crime.
of gun trafficking incidents, 32-34% involved guns stolen from stores or residences
of gun trafficking incidents, 32-34% involved guns stolen from stores or residences: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2017/07/25/436533/stolen-guns-america/ A 2000 ATF report that reviewed all firearms trafficking investigations undertaken by the agency between July 1996 and December 1998 the most recent such study the agency has conducted found that nearly 14 percent of those cases involved guns stolen from licensed gun dealers and another 10 percent involved guns stolen from private residences.11 These investigations involved more than 9,300 illegally trafficked guns.12 Another study analyzed data on 893 guns recovered by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Firearms Trafficking Unit in 2008 and found that for close to 32 percent of these firearms, their original owners claimed they had been stolen.13
International
across countries, mental illness is a significant but weak predictor of firearm deaths; firearms per capita is a strong predictor
across countries, mental illness is a significant but weak predictor of firearm deaths; firearms per capita is a strong predictor: https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00444-0/fulltext
In a linear regression model with firearm-related deaths as the dependent variable with gun ownership and mental illness as independent covariates, gun ownership was a significant predictor (P <.0001) of firearm-related deaths, whereas mental illness was of borderline significance (P = .05) only.
United States
the seriously mentally ill don't disproportionately commit crimes (4% population, 4% crimes) and they use less firearms in the crimes they do commit
the seriously mentally ill don't disproportionately commit crimes (4% population, 4% crimes) and they use less firearms in the crimes they do commit: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/ [S]urprisingly little population-level evidence supports the notion that individuals diagnosed with mental illness are more likely than anyone else to commit gun crimes. **According to Appelbaum,25 less than 3% to 5% of US crimes involve people with mental illness, and the percentages of crimes that involve guns are lower than the national average for persons not diagnosed with mental illness.** Databases that track gun homicides, such as the National Center for Health Statistics, similarly show that fewer than 5% of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness.26 [....] [A] number of the most common psychiatric diagnoses, including depressive, anxiety, and attention-deficit disorders, have no correlation with violence whatsoever.18 **Community studies find that serious mental illness without substance abuse is also statistically unrelated to community violence.40** At the aggregate level, the vast majority of people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders do not commit violent acts only about 4% of violence in the United States can be attributed to people diagnosed with mental illness.41,42
Lone Wolves
the vast majority of violence is not done by "loners"
the vast majority of violence is not done by "loners": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/ Contrary to the image of the marauding lone gunman, social relationships also predict gun violence. Regression analyses by Papachristos et al. demonstrate that up to 85% of shootings occur within social networks.60 In other words, **people are far more likely to be shot by relatives, friends, enemies, or acquaintances than they are by lone violent psychopaths.** Meanwhile, a report by the police department of New York City found that, in 2013, a person was more likely to die in a plane crash, drown in a bathtub or perish in an earthquake than be murdered by a crazed stranger in that city.61
Poor Prediction by Psychologists
psychologists are bad at predicting gun violence
psychologists are bad at predicting gun violence: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/: [R]esearch dating back to the 1970s suggests that psychiatrists using clinical judgment are not much better than laypersons at predicting which individual patients will commit violent crimes and which will not. [....] Thirty-three years later, Swanson put it even more succinctly: ** psychiatrists using clinical judgment are not much better than chance at predicting which individual patients will do something violent and which will not. **31,45 [unformatted]
Correlation: Caliber
higher-caliber bullets are substantially more likely to result in a death than lower-caliber bullets
Terminology
2-part approach: asks whether law meaningfully restricts 2A rights (such as self-defense) and then asks whether the state has grounds for this restriction (under the 3-tier scrutiny approach), nearly unanimously accepted by courts
2-part approach: asks whether law meaningfully restricts 2A rights (such as self-defense) and then asks whether the state has grounds for this restriction (under the 3-tier scrutiny approach), nearly unanimously accepted by courts
text, history, and tradition approach: asks whether law aligns with interpretation of historical ("Founding") documents, generally preferred by 2A advocates
text, history, and tradition approach: asks whether law aligns with interpretation of historical ("Founding") documents, generally preferred by 2A advocates
rational basis test
rational basis test: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/rational_basis_test lightest level of scrutiny, asks whether law [1] furthers an legitimate government interest and [2] does so by means that are rationally connected to that interest
intermediate scrutiny
intermediate scrutiny: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intermediate_scrutiny middling level of scrutiny, asks whether law [1] furthers an important government interest and [2] does so by means that are substantially related to that interest
heightened scrutiny
heightened scrutiny: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/strict_scrutiny harshest level of scrutiny, asks whether law [1] furthers a compelling government interest and [2] does so by means that are narrowly tailored to achieve that interest
Timeline of Landmark Cases
1939: US v Miller: unclear judgement
2008: DC v Heller: the 2nd Amendment protects individual right to use firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home
2008: DC v Heller: the 2nd Amendment protects individual right to use firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
2010: McDonald v Chicago: the 2nd Amendment was incorporated down to states and localities
2010: McDonald v Chicago: the 2nd Amendment was incorporated down to states and localities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago
2020: NYSRPA v NYC: ongoing relevant case
Success Rate Over Time
Ruben and Blocher 2018: 2A successes in appeals courts have increased since 2008, from ~5% to ~15%
Summary of Two-Part: Congressional Research Service
Peck 2019
Peck 2019: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode=R44618 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44618/14
Generally, the courts have adopted a two-step framework for evaluating Second Amendment challenges. First, courts ask whether the regulated person, firearm, or place comes within the scope of the Second Amendment s protections. If not, the law does not implicate the Second Amendment. But if so, the court next employs the appropriate level of judicial scrutiny rational basis, intermediate, or strict scrutiny to assess whether the law passes constitutional muster. In deciding what level of scrutiny is warranted, courts generally ask whether the challenged law burdens core Second Amendment conduct, like the ability to use a firearm for self-defense in the home. If a law substantially burdens core Second Amendment activity, courts typically will apply strict scrutiny. Otherwise, courts generally will apply intermediate scrutiny. Most challenged laws have been reviewed for intermediate scrutiny, where a court asks whether a law is substantially related to an important governmental interest.
Two-Part Test Is Judicial Consensus
Charles 2019: the two-part test is near-unanimous consensus among Circuit of Appeals judges
Charles 2019: the two-part test is near-unanimous consensus among Circuit of Appeals judges: https://sites.law.duke.edu/secondthoughts/2019/08/16/where-are-all-the-second-amendment-circuit-splits
Take the question of how Second Amendment challenges ought to be adjudicated. The courts of appeals have uniformly adopted a two-part test: courts ask first whether activity or conduct is protected by the Second Amendment and, if it is, they apply some form of means-end scrutiny to determine constitutionality. Although some circuit judges have advocated rejecting the two-part test in favor of a text, history, and tradition approach (including then-Judge Kavanaugh), no federal court of appeals has adopted that framework or any methodology that jettisons the two-part test. That could change in the current Second Amendment challenge pending in the Supreme Court, but for now the methodological question is settled.
Two-Part Test Approach: Being Applied!
Ruben and Blocher 2018: application of the two-part test has remained constant at around 45% of cases; this may undercount the true rate, as courts may not explicitly state that they are applying the first step
Ruben and Blocher 2018: application of the two-part test has remained constant at around 45% of cases; this may undercount the true rate, as courts may not explicitly state that they are applying the first step: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/5/23/17383644/second-2nd-amendment-gun-control-debate-santa-fe-parkland-heller-anniversary-constitution https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875838683981414451/ruben2018.pdf
There are good reasons to suppose that these results underreport the influence and adoption of the two-part test, however, at least within the federal courts. Just 32 percent of state appellate challenges applied the two-part test, compared with 46 percent of federal challenges. Moreover, as in other areas, courts may not be explicit when they are using the two-part test many of the cases that involve the application of tiered scrutiny might actually be instances of courts assuming coverage and skipping to the second step.243 Finally, the percentage of cases applying the two-part test increased steadily after 2012. This may reflect the growing impact of circuit opinions expressly adopting this decisional framework.244 Of the nine circuits that expressly adopted the two-part test, six did so in 2011 or later.245
Text, History, and Tradition Approach: Not Being Applied!
Ruben and Blocher 2018: citations to historical sources have dropped from ~20% before 2012 (when circuit courts began explicitly applying the 2-part test) to ~10% after; among cases that cited historical sources, the vast majority (63%) included 1935-1968 sources, fewer (23%) included 1791-1868 sources, and fewest (16%) included pre-1791 sources
Ruben and Blocher 2018: citations to historical sources have dropped from ~20% before 2012 (when circuit courts began explicitly applying the 2-part test) to ~10% after; among cases that cited historical sources, the vast majority (63%) included 1935-1968 sources, fewer (23%) included 1791-1868 sources, and fewest (16%) included pre-1791 sources: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875838683981414451/ruben2018.pdf
Unanimous Court Support for Certain Prohibitions
Charles 2019: every court of appeals has agreed that large-capacity magazine bans, assault weapon bans, prohibited person bans (felon bans, domestic violence bans), unusual weapon bans, and machine gun bans
Charles 2019: every court of appeals has agreed that large-capacity magazine bans, assault weapon bans, prohibited person bans (felon bans, domestic violence bans), unusual weapon bans, and machine gun bans: https://sites.law.duke.edu/secondthoughts/2019/08/16/where-are-all-the-second-amendment-circuit-splits/
The circuit courts have also largely agreed on specific types of Second Amendment challenges. Without exception, every federal court of appeals to have considered the question has upheld a ban on large-capacity magazines (indeed, a district judge in California recently became the first federal court in the nation to invalidate LCM restrictions ). The courts of appeals have uniformly upheld bans on so-called assault weapons. (Some have done so under Step 1, ruling that assault weapons have no Second Amendment protection whatsoever; others have done so under Step 2, upholding the bans under intermediate scrutiny.) These courts have, in addition, consistently rejected facial challenges to the firearms prohibition for felons and many other categories of prohibited persons: Facial challenges to the statute s constitutionality have failed in every circuit to have considered the issue. They have consistently rejected challenges to laws banning, or tightly regulating, possession of certain types of dangerous and unusual weapons. For example, Every post-Heller circuit court that has addressed the machine gun issue has rejected Second Amendment claims. The amount of agreement over such a wide swath of regulations is noteworthy.
Statistical Court Support for Prohibitions by Category
Ruben and Blocher 2018: cases are most likely to be successful if attacking public carry restrictions (22%) and where guns may be carried (18%), then gun licensing regimes (16%) and what guns may be purchased (13%)
Ruben and Blocher 2018: cases are most likely to be successful if attacking public carry restrictions (22%) and where guns may be carried (18%), then gun licensing regimes (16%) and what guns may be purchased (13%): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875838683981414451/ruben2018.pdf
Gun Permits
Ruben and Blocher 2018: excluding the District of Columbia, only 3% of challenges to gun permitting for possession succeeded
Ruben and Blocher 2018: excluding the District of Columbia, only 3% of challenges to gun permitting for possession succeeded: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875838683981414451/ruben2018.pdf
The final category of challenges involved laws calling for the permitting of firearms or of people desiring to possess or purchase them.237 These restrictions have also been controversial, resulting in 114 challenges and a 16 percent success rate. Much of that success corresponds to litigation involving the District of Columbia s evolving regulatory regime.238 Absent the litigation in the District of Columbia, the success rate in this category drops to 3 percent.
Felon Posssession Ban
Ruben and Blocher 2018: every court held that felons can be banned from firearm possession
Ruben and Blocher 2018: every court held that felons can be banned from firearm possession: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875838683981414451/ruben2018.pdf
This relatively low success rate was largely due to 273 challenges to felon-in-possession statutes. These challenges, which account for 24 percent of the entire dataset, were rejected 99 percent of time and enjoyed no success at the federal appellate level during our study period.207
Assault Weapon Ban
Ruben and Blocher 2018: every court held that assault weapons can be banned
Ruben and Blocher 2018: every court held that assault weapons can be banned: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875838683981414451/ruben2018.pdf
One controversial policy in the public debate has been less so in court: bans on assault weapons. The database contains eighteen challenges to assault weapon bans ten in federal court and eight in state appellate court. During the study period, courts rejected all but two: Wilson v. County of Cook, in which the Illinois Supreme Court remanded for further fact finding,214 and Cutonilli v. State, 215 in which the district court stayed proceedings pending the outcome in a similar case, Kolbe v. Hogan. In Kolbe, the Fourth Circuit ultimately upheld the ban.216
Safe Storage Requirement
Ruben and Blocher 2018: zero appeals courts and only one lower court have ruled against safe storage laws
Ruben and Blocher 2018: zero appeals courts and only one lower court have ruled against safe storage laws: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165011 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/875838683981414451/ruben2018.pdf
How restrictions, those requiring safe storage of firearms, have rarely been a litigation target they account for just 1 percent of the dataset. Overall, this category has a 13 percent success rate, with a single victory at each of the federal trial and state appellate levels.222 This is one area, however, where success may prove short-lived. The court in one of the two cases denied a motion to dismiss a complaint challenging Illinois s safe storage law, but noted that the plaintiffs may face an uphill battle on the merits of their claim at later stages.223 The claim then became moot and was dismissed after a plaintiff in the case moved to another state.224 In the other case, the court remanded for the trial court to apply heightened scrutiny to Ohio s vehicle storage law.225 On remand and in a subsequent appeal, the law was upheld.226
Summary
Marx suggested that workers should arm themselves in a very different context than today. Engels suggested that workers should not fire first in a context more similar to today.
Marx suggested that workers should arm themselves in a very different context than today. Engels suggested that workers should not fire first in a context more similar to today. https://twitter.com/SocDoneLeft/status/1528907011194245120
Engels 1895
Engels 1895: classic street revolution likely outmoded, rifles will mow down workers
Engels 1895: however, there remains a "right to revolution"
Engels 1895: however, there remains a "right to revolution": https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm https://u1lib.org/book/2484928/02ad1a
Of course, our comrades abroad have not abandoned the right to revolution. The right to revolution is, in the last analysis, the only real historic right upon which all modern States rest without exception, including even Mecklenburg where the revolution of the nobility was terminated in 1755 through the inheritance agreement, the glorious confirmation of feudalism valid this very day. The right to revolution is so thoroughly recognized in the inner consciousness of man, that even General von Boguslawski deduces from this popular right alone the coup d tat whereby to vindicate his Kaiser.
With this successful utilization of the general franchise, an entirely new method of the proletarian struggle had come into being[.] [....] Bourgeoisie and Government feared far more the legal than the illegal action of the workers party, more the successes of the elections than those of rebellion. [....] The irony of history turns everything upside down. We, the "revolutionists," ... thrive much better with legal than with illegal means in forcing an overthrow. [....] [I]f we are not insane enough to favor them by letting them drive us into street battles, nothing will in the end be left to them but themselves to break through the legality that is so fatal to them.
With this successful utilization of the general franchise, an entirely new method of the proletarian struggle had come into being[.] [....] Bourgeoisie and Government feared far more the legal than the illegal action of the workers party, more the successes of the elections than those of rebellion. [....] The irony of history turns everything upside down. We, the "revolutionists," ... thrive much better with legal than with illegal means in forcing an overthrow. [....] [I]f we are not insane enough to favor them by letting them drive us into street battles, nothing will in the end be left to them but themselves to break through the legality that is so fatal to them.
"""The rebellion of the old style, the street fight behind barricades, which up to 1848 gave the final decision, has become antiquated. .... Already in 1849 the chances of success were rather poor. .... [T]he barricade had a moral rather than a material effect. It was a means to shake the solidity of the military. If it held until that had been accomplished, the victory was won; if not, it meant defeat. .... Since then, much more has been changed, all in favor of the military. .... Does the reader understand why the ruling classes, by hook or by crook, would get us where the rifle pops? Why they charge us with cowardice because we will not get down into the street where we are sure of our defeat in advance?"""
The rebellion of the old style, the street fight behind barricades, which up to 1848 gave the final decision, has become antiquated. .... Already in 1849 the chances of success were rather poor. .... [T]he barricade had a moral rather than a material effect. It was a means to shake the solidity of the military. If it held until that had been accomplished, the victory was won; if not, it meant defeat. .... Since then, much more has been changed, all in favor of the military. .... Does the reader understand why the ruling classes, by hook or by crook, would get us where the rifle pops? Why they charge us with cowardice because we will not get down into the street where we are sure of our defeat in advance?
Marx 1850
Marx 1850: abbreviated quote: gun good
Marx 1850: abbreviated quote: gun good: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm
The workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
Marx 1850: full quote: guns are good, when controlled by organized workers and used to oppose the petty-bourgeois parties that Marx thought would win in the (non-existent) revolutions following the 1848 rebellions
Marx 1850: full quote: guns are good, when controlled by organized workers and used to oppose the petty-bourgeois parties that Marx thought would win in the (non-existent) revolutions following the 1848 rebellions: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm
The relationship of the revolutionary workers party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position. [....] [F]rom the very moment of [joint worker and petty-bourgeois democratic] victory the workers suspicion must be directed no longer against the defeated reactionary party but against their former ally[.] [...] To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition[.] [....] Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
Marx 1850: meme quote
Marx 1850: meme quote: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm The relationship of the revolutionary workers party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the [reactionary] party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position. .... [F]rom the very moment of victory the workers suspicion must be directed no longer against the defeated reactionary party but against their former ally[.] ... To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition[.]
Memes
original meme
counter meme
Data
Silverman 1997 (ed Rodriguez): about 1 in 4 Jews who could own slaves (ie, adult male heads of household) did
Silverman 1997 (ed Rodriguez): about 1 in 4 Jews who could own slaves (ie, adult male heads of household) did: https://books.google.com/books?id=ATq5_6h2AT0C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA384#v=onepage&q&f=false https://www.worldcat.org/title/37884790 https://u1lib.org/book/5946720/e2a785 Yet it must be remembered that as successful as these Jewish Southerners were by Southern standards, they represented a very tiny percentage of the 20,000 Jews residing in the antebellum South who could, or would, ever aspire to own a slave. (About 5,000 Jews owned one or more slaves -- about 1.25 percent of all the slaveowners in the antebellum South.)
about 1 in 4 Southerner households owned slaves
Memes
original meme
Data
Faber 2000: 25 of 1483 ships (1.69%) entering Barbados in 1718-21 were wholly or partially owned by Jews
Faber 2000: 25 of 1483 ships (1.69%) entering Barbados in 1718-21 were wholly or partially owned by Jews: https://books.google.com/books?id=smoVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 https://u1lib.org/book/2733675/a13a71 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1035335714084245646/faber2000.pdf Between March 25, 1718 and June 25, 1721, of 1,483 ships entering in and then clearing out, 1,458, or 98.3 percent, were owned by non-Jews (Table 4.1). Thirteen vessels, or less than 1 percent (eight-tenths of 1 percent), were owned by Jewish individuals, while an additional 12 vessels were owned by combinations of Jewish and non-Jewish partners. The majority of the Jewish individuals involved, however, did not reside in Barbados.8
Faber 2000: between 1 (0.3%) and 0 (0%) of 345 ships entering Barbados in 1735-36 were (possibly) owned by Jews
Faber 2000: between 1 (0.3%) and 0 (0%) of 345 ships entering Barbados in 1735-36 were (possibly) owned by Jews: https://books.google.com/books?id=smoVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 https://u1lib.org/book/2733675/a13a71 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1035335714084245646/faber2000.pdf Between March 25, 1735 and March 25, 1736, not a single vessel that arrived in the colony belonged to a Jewish merchant. Of the 345 that entered during that period, 344, or 99.7 percent, were owned by non-Jews. In the remaining case, the Naval Office did not record the name of the owner.9
Faber 2000: 4 of 420 ships (0.95%) entering Barbados in 1774-75 were owned by Jews
Faber 2000: 4 of 420 ships (0.95%) entering Barbados in 1774-75 were owned by Jews: https://books.google.com/books?id=smoVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 https://u1lib.org/book/2733675/a13a71 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1035335714084245646/faber2000.pdf Later in the century, of 424 vessels that arrived in Barbados between January 1, 1774 and January 5, 1775, 420, or 99 percent, were owned by non-Jews.
Faber 2000: 0 of 215 Africa-destined ships from London during 1764, 1776, and 1790 had Jewish primary owners
Faber 2000: 0 of 215 Africa-destined ships from London during 1764, 1776, and 1790 had Jewish primary owners: https://books.google.com/books?id=smoVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 https://u1lib.org/book/2733675/a13a71 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1035335714084245646/faber2000.pdf Lloyd s register for 1764, the first published, listed 74 London vessels with Africa as their destination; none of the primary owners listed therein was Jewish.117 The registers for 1776 and 1790 respectively listed 72 and 69 vessels, again with primary owners whose names were not Jewish.118
Faber 2000: 0 of 190 Liverpool merchants in the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa of 1752 or 1758 were Jewish
Faber 2000: 0 of 190 Liverpool merchants in the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa of 1752 or 1758 were Jewish: https://books.google.com/books?id=smoVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 https://u1lib.org/book/2733675/a13a71 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1035335714084245646/faber2000.pdf As in London and Bristol, the Jews of Liverpool did not own ships in the slave trade. Peddlers and petty shopkeepers, none were on the list of 101 Liverpool merchants who belonged to the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa in 1752, nor, as noted previously, among the 89 who belonged to it in 1758.127
Faber 2000: 0 of the primary owners of Liverpool's slave-trading firms in 1752, 1764, 1790, and 1807 were Jewish
Faber 2000: 0 of the primary owners of Liverpool's slave-trading firms in 1752, 1764, 1790, and 1807 were Jewish: https://books.google.com/books?id=smoVCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 https://u1lib.org/book/2733675/a13a71 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1035335714084245646/faber2000.pdf Nor were Jews to be found among the 66 primary owners of the 88 Liverpool vessels trading with Africa in 1752 that carried 24,730 slaves, or among the owners of the 80 Liverpool vessels listed by Lloyd s as trading there in 1764.128 Twenty-six years later, in 1790, the Liverpool slave fleet of 141 vessels was owned by forty firms, none of which was Jewish. And in 1807, the year in which Britain terminated the slave trade throughout its empire, none of Liverpool s seventy-odd companies trading to Africa was Jewish.129
Summary
Jewish people were very overrepresented in some institutions of Soviet power, but only slightly overrepresented in all institutions of Soviet power, especially when Jewish urbanicity and Soviet preference for urban residents is taken into account. Regardless, Jewish people made up a small minority of powerholders, and could not have controlled the Soviet Union. Beyond that, Communist Jews saw themselves as committed Marxists, firmly opposed to Judaism, who did not prioritize their Jewish ethnicity: any claims of a Jewish plots to control the Soviet Union must contend that a small minority of committed communist atheists were actually mere puppets of their spooky scary evil Jewish genetics.
Jewish people were very overrepresented in some institutions of Soviet power, but only slightly overrepresented in all institutions of Soviet power, especially when Jewish urbanicity and Soviet preference for urban residents is taken into account. Regardless, Jewish people made up a small minority of powerholders, and could not have controlled the Soviet Union. Beyond that, Communist Jews saw themselves as committed Marxists, firmly opposed to Judaism, who did not prioritize their Jewish ethnicity: any claims of a Jewish plots to control the Soviet Union must contend that a small minority of committed communist atheists were actually mere puppets of their spooky scary evil Jewish genetics.
nazi meme
anti-nazi countermeme
countervideos
Overview of the Research: Jews Were Likely Overrepresented, but Most Were Apolitical (Like Most People) and Most Gravitated to Jewish Organizations
Gerrits 1995: Jews were probably more radical than than non-Jews, but the vast majority of Jews (and the vast majority of non-Jews) were apolitical; the extreme positions of equation ("Jews = communist" or "Jews = radical") and denial ("Jews = centrist" or "Jews = anti-radical") are wrong
Gerrits 1995: Jews were probably more radical than than non-Jews, but the vast majority of Jews (and the vast majority of non-Jews) were apolitical; the extreme positions of equation ("Jews = communist" or "Jews = radical") and denial ("Jews = centrist" or "Jews = anti-radical") are wrong: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501679508577796 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/13501679508577796 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/900080646943309844/gerrits1995.pdf
Most scholars who have studied the relationship between Jews and revolution hold views which lie somewhere between the extremes of denial and equation. They usually reject any distinctive affinity between 'Jewishness' and political radicalism but accept the obvious attraction of political radicalism on relatively many people of Jewish origin and present a number of arguments in favour of this thesis.
Gerrits 1995
Gerrits 1995: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501679508577796 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/13501679508577796 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/900080646943309844/gerrits1995.pdf
The anti-Jewish purges in various Communist parties from the late 1940s onwards were at least partly inspired by the intention to dissociate the movement from Jews as soon as possible. Ultimately, the Communist leaderships would not only declare the idea of 'Judeo Communism* nonexistent, and repress any reference to it, but they would actually distort the significance of the whole idea of the Jewish world conspiracy and cloak it in terms of 'rootless cosmopolitanism' or 'international Zionism'
Demographic Data
Wikipedia's summary of "Jewish involvement in Russian Communism" (not much)
AshHistorian's summary of Judeo-Bolshevism
in 1897 (the last prewar census), the Russian Empire's population was 125,640,021; of those: speakers of Yiddish were 5,063,156 (4.03%) and believers of Judaism were 5,215,805 (4.15%)
in 1897 (the last prewar census), the Russian Empire's population was 125,640,021; of those: speakers of Yiddish were 5,063,156 (4.03%) and believers of Judaism were 5,215,805 (4.15%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire_Census
Overy 2013: Overy 2005: in 1917, the Bolshevik Party had 26,000 members; before 1917, only 958 were Jews (3.68% of 26000); in contrast, the anti-Bolshevik Jewish Bund had 33,000 members (more than the entire Bolshevik Party)
Overy 2013: Overy 2005: in 1917, the Bolshevik Party had 26,000 members; before 1917, only 958 were Jews (3.68% of 26000); in contrast, the anti-Bolshevik Jewish Bund had 33,000 members (more than the entire Bolshevik Party): https://books.google.com/books?id=6VaGzDF8_MYC https://u1lib.org/book/3756384/4bde78
^ citation: Gitelman 1997
^^ citation: Gitelman 1972
Herf 2009: Jews as a portion of the USSR's leadership
Common Source: Vladimir Putin
putin claims the first Soviet government was mostly Jewish
response: Putin is not a historian and doesn't know what he's talking about lol
Common Source: Sever Plocker, "Stalin's Jews"
in an opinion piece, without any citation, Sever Plocker (a Jew but not a historian) claims 38.5% of high security posts were Jews
in an opinion piece, without any citation, Sever Plocker (a Jew but not a historian) claims 38.5% of high security posts were Jews: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html
In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges.
Common Source: Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands" (A Good Book!)
https://u1lib.org/book/1242771/eec13d
About forty percent of high-ranking NKVD officers had Jewish nationality recorded in their identity documents, as did more than half of the NKVD generals.
Common Source: George Simons, "Bolshevik Propaganda"
my video about the subject
Simons praising the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a reputable source
^ the protocols were a notorious fake
^ the protocols were a notorious fake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion
Mr. Simons. There is a gentleman here in America who last night called on me. [....] He asked me whether I knew anything about the anti-Christian element in the Bolshevik regime. I said, "Indeed, I do. I do know all about it." He said, "Did you ever come across the so-called Jewish protocols?" I said, "Yes; I have had them." "I have a memorandum," he said, "and last win- ter after much trouble I came into possession of a book which was called 'Eedusti, anti-Christ.' "Now, Dr. Houghton in the mean- time had investigated this. He had come into possession of this book, which is quite rare now, because it was said that when the edition came out it was immediately bought up by the Jews in Petrograd and Moscow. That book reflects a real organization. That book is of some consequence. But the average person in official life here in Washington and elsewhere is afraid to handle it. Houghton says that even in his intelligence bureau they were afraid of it.
Common Source: Dr. Hermann Greife, "Slave Labor" or "Concentration Camps"
Herman Greife was a Russian German who published books for the Nazis and was a member of the SS
Herman Greife was a Russian German who published books for the Nazis and was a member of the SS: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%84%D0%B5,_%D0%93%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD
From there he moved to the Institute for the Study of Eastern Europe (Wannsee-Institute), which was part of the SD structure, where in 1936-1937 he was the manager of affairs[4], and where from September 1938 to 1940 he worked with the Deputy Director of the Institute for Research Mikhail Akhmeteli[1]. During his work in these think tanks, Greife created a number of works devoted to the ideology and political philosophy of the Soviet Union, as well as the history of Soviet statehood and a number of subjects of contemporary Soviet reality. In 1937 he published the author of a sharply anti-Semitic and anti-Soviet book "Concentration Camps in the Soviet Union Run by Jews" (1937), which was subsequently reprinted several times under the title "Slave Labor in the USSR"[1]. On September 11, 1938, he joined the SS (number 997 868) as an Untersturmf hrer, by the end of his life he had the rank of Obersturmbannf hrer.
quote on the leaders of the GPU
quotes stating that the gulags were death camps
quotes stating that the gulags were death camps: https://u1lib.org/book/6036841/34be34 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/779515149316259870/greife1937.pdf
For millions of people, concentration camps have been nothing but transit points into eternity. Here the death of millions could not be accounted for as murder and moreover, these death-sacrificed victims of Jewish tyranny could be exploited to the last drop of blood in the interest of a. "Socialistic State" before being freed by the merciful reaper-death.
In spite of the ever increasing masses of prisoners this "living material" very often is not sufficient to fulfill the fantastic "plans" of the government, because people die as a result of the horrible conditions that prevail in these concentration camps about as rapidly as new material can be delivered. And so, the Soviet government organizes and conducts from time to time "man-hunts" to provide new material. People are often arrested and exiled who even in the eyes of the government could not be in any sense regarded as "undesirables".
^ card from the end of the book
^ the modern book was published by a self-publication rag that publishes literally everything
^ the modern book was published by a self-publication rag that publishes literally everything: https://www.bookdepository.com/publishers/Defender-Publishing
Sovnarkom Ethnicities in Reality
actual Sovnarkom (November 1917: 8/15 Russian, 3/15 Ukranian, 2/15 Jew, 1/15 Polish, 1/15 Georgian, 1/15 unfilled)
actual Sovnarkom (November 1917: 8/15 Russian, 3/15 Ukranian, 2/15 Jew, 1/15 Polish, 1/15 Georgian, 1/15 unfilled): http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/DEKRET/snk.htm https://archive.ph/Q9qB
: ( ). . . . . . . . . . : . . ( ), . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . ( ). . . ( ). . . ( ). . . . . . ( ). . . ( ). .
Robert Wilton: Claimed SNK
claimed Sovnarkom (Soviet of People's Commissars: 17/22 Jew)
President Ulyanov (Lenin) Russian Foreign Affairs Tchitcherine Russian Nationalities Djugashvili (Stalin) Georgian Agriculture Protian Armenian Economic Council Lourie (Larine) Jew Army & Navy Bronstein (Trotsky) Jew Social Relief E. Lelina (Knigissen) Jewess Public Instruction Lounatcharsky Russian Interior Apfelbaum (Zinovief) Jew Finance Isidore Goukovski Jew Refugees (assist.) Savitch Jew Refugees (assist.) Zaslovski Jew Central Committee Ethnicities in Reality
actual Central Committee (August 1917: 7/21 Russian, 7/21 Jewish, 2/21 Georgian, 2/21 Latvian, 2/21 Ukranian, 1/21 Polish)
actual Central Committee (August 1917: 7/21 Russian, 7/21 Jewish, 2/21 Georgian, 2/21 Latvian, 2/21 Ukranian, 1/21 Polish): http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/_KPSS.html#006 https://web.archive.org/web/20210711190005/http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/06_s'ezd_RSDRP(b)._Protokoly.(1934).[djv-fax].zip https://web.archive.org/web/20210711010923/http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/06_s'ezd_RSDRP(b)._Protokoly.(1934).[pdf-fax].zip https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987871072902840401/RSDLPb_6th_Congress_August_1917_Minutes.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987871073511022632/RSDLPb_6th_Congress_August_1917_Minutes.djvu
206 . 21 10 ( . . 122 138). : .: ( . .), . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . ., . . ,. ., - . ., . ., . ., . ., . 10 8. : . . ., . ., . ., . ., | . . ( ), . ., . . . .
Robert Wilton: Central Committee: Reality
actual Central Committee (March 1918: 6/14 Jewish)
actual Central Committee (March 1918: 6/14 Jewish): http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/_KPSS.html#007 https://web.archive.org/web/20220401090941/http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/07_ekstrennyy_s'ezd_RKP(b).(1962).[djv-fax].zip https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/987871140527611994/RSDLPb_6th_Congress_March_1918_Minutes.djvu
8. ( ) : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . : , , , , , , , .
6/14 Jewish (6/14/.04 = 11x overrepresented) 4/14 Russian (4/14/.54 = .53x overrepresented = 1.9x underrepresented) 2/14 Latvian (2/14/.015 = 9.5x overrepresented) 1/14 Polish (1/14/.075 = 0.95 overrepresented = 1.05x underrepresented) 1/14 Georgian (1/14/.016 = 4.5x overrepresented) Robert Wilton: Claimed Central Committee
claimed Central Commitee (9/12 Jew, 3/12 Russian)
Robert Wilton: Central Government of the Soviets
claimed "Central Government of the Soviets" (doesn't actually exist, but if it did, it would be 6/12 Jews)
claimed "Central Government of the Soviets" (doesn't actually exist, but if it did, it would be 6/12 Jews): http://www.histoireebook.com/index.php?post/Wilton-Robert-Les-derniers-jours-des-Romanof
the "Senate Committee" results are literally just some insane dude's rambling -- he claims most Bolshevik leaders were Jews from Brooklyn, New York
the "Senate Committee" results are literally just some insane dude's rambling -- he claims most Bolshevik leaders were Jews from Brooklyn, New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-5b1CpjAcQ&list=PLNGRQi2kyMcIARUW8gw3ZNm8H62lmcIF8&index=22 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924030480051/cu31924030480051_djvu.txt
The latest startling information, given me by some one who says that there is good authority for it and I ani to be given the exact figures later on and have them checked up properly by the proper authorities is this, that in December, 1918. in the northern community of Petrograd, so-called that is what they call that section of the Soviet regime under the presidency of the man known as Mr. Apfelbaum out of 388 members, only 16 happened to be real Russians, and all the rest Jews, with the exception possibly of one man, who is a negro from America, who calls himself Prof. Gordon, and 265 of the members of this northern commune govern- ment, that is sitting in the old Smolny Institute, came from the lower East Side of New York 265 of them. If that is true, and they are going to check it up for me certain Eussians in New York who have been there and investigated the facts I think that that fits into what you are driving at. In fact, I am very much impressed with this, that moving around here I find that certain Bolsheviki propagandists are nearly all Jews apostate Jews. I have been in the so-called People's House, at 7 East Fifteenth Street, New York, which calls itself also the Rand School of Social Science, and I have visited that at least six times during the last eleven weeks or so, buying their literature, and some of the most seditious stuff I have ever found against our own Government, and 19 out of every 20 people I have seen there have been Jews.
list of people who killed the Czar
list of people who killed the Czar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_the_Romanov_family#Executioners Ivan Plotnikov, history professor at the Maksim Gorky Ural State University, has established that the executioners were **Yakov Yurovsky**, **Grigory P. Nikulin**, **Mikhail A. Medvedev (Kudrin)**, **Peter Ermakov**, **Stepan Vaganov**, **Alexey G. Kabanov** (former soldier in the tsar's Life Guards and Chekist assigned to the attic machine gun),[48] **Pavel Medvedev**, **V. N. Netrebin**, and **Y. M. Tselms**. Filipp Goloshchyokin, a close associate of Yakov Sverdlov, being a military commissar of the Uralispolkom in Yekaterinburg, however did not actually participate, and two or three guards refused to take part.
Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky: raised Jewish, converted Lutheran
Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky: raised Jewish, converted Lutheran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Yurovsky Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky was the eighth of ten children born to Mikhail Yurovsky, a glazier, and his wife Ester Moiseevna (1848 1919), a seamstress. He was born on 19 June [O.S. 7 June] 1878 in the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russia. The Yurovsky family were Jewish. The historian Helen Rappaport writes that the young Yurovsky studied the Talmud in his early youth, while the family seems to have later attempted to distance themselves from their Jewish roots; this may have been prompted by the prejudice toward Jews frequently exhibited in Russia at the time.[1] Shortly before fully devoting himself to the cause of revolution, in the early twentieth century Yurovsky converted to Lutheranism.[1]
Grigory Petrovich Nikulin: raised in a parish school
Grigory Petrovich Nikulin: raised in a parish school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Petrovich_Nikulin Nikulin was born and raised in Zvenigorodka, Kiev province, Russian Empire. He came from a lower-class family. His father Pyotr Iossiffovich ( ) was a bricklayer and mother Anna Ivanovna a housewife. At the age of 9 Grigory started attending parish school at Zvenigorod church, which he enjoyed immensely. Education was interrupted by his family's disastrous financial situation. After which he started working in a local blacksmith shop. In the spring of 1909 family sold their house in Zvenigorodka and moved to a nearby small town of Uman. At the age of 16 Grigory moved out of parent's house and became a bricklayer. He joined a local social democratic club in Uman in 1913. Soon he was deported from Kiev province and moved to Kazan.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev-Kudrin: raised in a parish school
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev-Kudrin: raised in a parish school: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B2,_%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BB_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 1900 - , 1900 1908 , , - [1]. [In 1900 he graduated from a parish school in the village of Izgar. In 1900-1908 he lived in Chistopol, where he began to study at a school of artisanal students, but after the second grade he was forced to drop out of school due to the difficult financial situation of his family.[1]]
Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov: raised in a parish school
Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov: raised in a parish school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ermakov Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov was born on 13 December [O.S. 1 December] 1884, and raised in and around the Verkh-Isetskiy workhouse in Yekaterinburg, Russian Empire. Ermakov graduated from the local parish school, working thereafter as a metal craftsman, and between 1909 and 1912, is listed as living in Vologodskaya Province.
Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev: unknown
Studies With No Citations or Hard Evidence
Schultz 2020: Jews made up 1/3 of the 1000 white Northern volunteers during the Freedom Summer
Schultz 2020: Jews made up 1/3 of the 1000 white Northern volunteers during the Freedom Summer: https://jwa.org/blog/suffrage/freedom-summer-fight-universal-suffrage-continues
Of the 1,000 white northern student volunteers who came South for Freedom Summer, a third were Jewish. Though the women tended to have more activism experience than the men, work assignments were gendered. While 20 percent of the white women volunteers requested the much more dangerous voter registration work, only 9 percent were so assigned. A higher percentage of women were asked to teach in the Freedom Schools, though they often joined voter registration workers in the evening for canvassing.
Itzkovitz 2011: Jews made up 2/3 of the 1000 white Northern volunteers during the Freedom Summer
Itzkovitz 2011: Jews made up 2/3 of the 1000 white Northern volunteers during the Freedom Summer: https://sci-hub.se/10.2979/transition.105.3
In reality, while the number of whites who worked for the civil rights struggle were disproportionately Jewish (Northern Jews, for instance, comprised nearly two thirds of the whites who traveled South during Freedom Summer) these activists, of course, made up only a small portion of American Jews.
Possible Sources of Hard Evidence
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Wednesdays_in_Mississippi/5ggbBwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=144 https://academic.oup.com/mississippi-scholarship-online/book/19119/chapter-abstract/177553426 "
. Schultz, Going South, 18; Webb, Fight against Fear, 80. 145. Webb, Fight against Fear, 150 151. 146. Nussbaum, oral history, 29. 147. Allen Krause, The Southern Rabbi and Civil Rights (M.A. thesis, Hebrew Union CollegeJewish ...
M.A. thesis, University of Memphis, May 2007. Krause, Allen. The Southern Rabbi and Civil Rights. M.A. thesis,
Commonly-Cited Example by Anti-Racist Jewish Groups
Mississippi Burning: in 1964, the KKK murdered three men in Philadelphia, Mississippi: James Early Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner; each was participating in Freedom Summer and was a member of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); Goodman and Schwerner were both Jewish
Mississippi Burning: in 1964, the KKK murdered three men in Philadelphia, Mississippi: James Early Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner; each was participating in Freedom Summer and was a member of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); Goodman and Schwerner were both Jewish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Chaney,_Goodman,_and_Schwerner https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/mississippi-burning https://arthurashe.ucla.edu/2016/06/21/tragedy-in-mississippi-looking-back-at-a-galvanizing-event-in-the-civil-rights-movement/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/after-52-years-mississippi-burning-case-closed-180959533/ https://www.alexautographs.com/auction-lot/mississippi-burning-f.b.i.-missing-persons-poster_FD4445B9B0
However, the event had the opposite of the intended effect: instead of dissuading activists, it caught the attention of the nation. President Lyndon B. Johnson and civil rights activists used the event to galvanize support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was signed July 2nd. Thanks to an informant, the bodies were found and in November the FBI charged 21 men with depriving the three activists of their civil rights. The more traditional charge of murder, which is a state crime, was not possible because Mississippi refused to prosecute them. Even then, a judge who was a segregationist dismissed the indictments, which had to be overruled by the Supreme Court. Seven of the men were finally convicted in 1967, becoming the first ever conviction for the killing civil rights workers in the state. Their sentences were from three to 10 years and none of them ended up serving more than six. 41 years later, Mississippi finally charged someone for the murders, Killen, and he was convicted of three counts of manslaughter with three consecutive 20 year sentences.
High Intermarriage Rates (Ie, Not "Multiculturalism for Three")
Jewish intermarriage rates are very high, and rising
Polls of American Jews on Israel
american jews poll on israel
american jews poll on israel
another poll
Representation in College
atheists in college
^
^
^
Todo Unformatted Unread
Foxman 2007
Foxman 2010
Feingold 2008
Doherty 2013
Doherty 2013: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hollywood_and_Hitler_1933_1939/maYe2lApDMgC "The disproportionately Jewish backgrounds of the executives of the studios and the workers"
Enikolopov and Petrova 2015
Terrorism in War: Ineffective
Fortna 2015: relative to civil wars led by nonterrorist rebel groups, terrorist rebel groups were 15x less likely to achieve victory and 2x less likely to reach an agreement with the government
relative to nondemocratic government, civil wars led by terrorist rebel groups against democratic governments less (rather than more) likely to fail, but not more likely to succeed (or: terrorism is better at elongating wars against democracies than nondemocracies, but not at actually winning them)
relative to nondemocratic government, civil wars led by terrorist rebel groups against democratic governments less (rather than more) likely to fail, but not more likely to succeed (or: terrorism is better at elongating wars against democracies than nondemocracies, but not at actually winning them): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/do-terrorists-win-rebels-use-of-terrorism-and-civil-war-outcomes/4729B2B926904616190DC38DB3240C8F https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/S0020818315000089
Leftist Revolution in Peru: Politically Ineffective
Cameron 2019: the activities of the Sendero Luminosa [Shining Path] weakened the left and strengthened the authoritarian neoliberal government of Fujimori
Cameron 2019: the activities of the Sendero Luminosa [Shining Path] weakened the left and strengthened the authoritarian neoliberal government of Fujimori: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1269269047 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/990266212770525285/soifer2019.pdf
Two lessons are apparent. First, the internal confl ict infl uenced the development of Peru s constitutional order in two ways: it created the crisis that enabled a new constitution to be written, and it weakened the Left and popular organizations necessary to contest neo liberalism.1 Analysts agree that the 1993 constitution was more authoritarian and neoliberal than its 1979 predecessor (Rubio Correa 2012; Tei vai nen 2002; Planas 1999; Garc a Belaunde 1996). It rolled back social features of the 1979 constitution and facilitated the concentration of power in the hands of the executive branch of government.2 It also proved remarkably enduring, in large measure because it aligned Peru with neoliberal precepts. Peru did not emulate other countries in the region that undertook constitutional reforms (often called republican refounding ) as part of a left turn (Cameron and Hershberg 2010; Levitsky and Roberts 2011; Ellner 2014). One could argue that the Shining Path foreclosed the possibility of a left turn by creating an emergency situation which resulted in a constitution that locked in a neoliberal economic model and, with it, a correspondingly limited electoral democracy.3
Munoz 2019: the ambivalent position of the main leftist alliance on revolutionary violence made it easy to connect them with the revolutionaries, and voters did exactly that
Munoz 2019: the ambivalent position of the main leftist alliance on revolutionary violence made it easy to connect them with the revolutionaries, and voters did exactly that: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1269269047 https://u1lib.org/book/19241714/7ca96b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/990266212770525285/soifer2019.pdf
Terrorism in Israel: Politically Ineffective
Berrebi and Klor 2008: areas in Israel with higher amounts of terrorism were more likely to support right-wing candidates
Getmansky and Zeitzoff 2014: constituencies within the rocket range of the Gaza Strip (and therefore Hamas) causally became 2-6 pp more likely to vote for right-wing parties
Terrorism in General: Ineffective
Abrahms 2006: from a dataset of 42 terrorist groups, terrorism is rarely successful (7%, 3/42) or partly successful (17%, 7/42); more successful against military targets (30%, 3/10) than civilian (0%, 0/18); more successful with limited goals (43%, 3/7) than maximalist or other goals (0%, 0/17 and 0/9)
Abrahms 2006: from a dataset of 42 terrorist groups, terrorism is rarely successful (7%, 3/42) or partly successful (17%, 7/42); more successful against military targets (30%, 3/10) than civilian (0%, 0/18); more successful with limited goals (43%, 3/7) than maximalist or other goals (0%, 0/17 and 0/9): https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.42 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/4137516
^ Abrahms 2006: list of terrorist groups
^ example 1
^ example 1: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.42 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/4137516
[1991-6:] In 1991 Chechnya's first president, Dzhokar Dudayev, took the additional step of declaring independence. Federal forces invaded Chechnya in December 1994 to reestablish control in the breakaway republic. For the next twenty months, Russian federal forces battled Chechen guerrillas in an asymmetric war based in Chechnya.
From the onset of military operations until the cease-fire in August 1996, some 70 percent of Russians opposed the war.61 Disdain for the war manifested itself most clearly in public attitudes toward Defense Minister Pavel Grachev. Opinion polls rated his approval at only 3 percent, just a few points lower than the Russian public's support for Yeltsin's handling of the Chechen problem in general.6
[1999-on:] A large bomb was detonated on the ground floor of an apartment building in southeast Moscow, killing 94 civilians. On September 13, another large bomb blew up an apartment building on the Kashmirskoye highway, killing 118 civilians. On September 16, a truck bomb exploded outside a nine-story apartment complex in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk, killing 17 civilians. The Kremlin quickly fingered the Chechens as the perpetrators.7
Polls conducted after the terrorist attacks showed that Russians were almost twice as likely to believe that Chechen motives were now to "kill Russians," "bring Russia to its knees," "destabilize the situation in Russia," "destroy and frighten Russian society," and "bring chaos to Russian society" than to achieve "the independence of Chechnya."77
Popular support for war remained remarkably stable after the bombings; six months after they occurred, 73 percent of Russians favored "the advance of federal forces into Chechnya," compared with only 19 percent of Russians who wanted "peaceful negotiations with the Chechen leadership."83 Since 2000, support for President Putin's Chechnya policy has not dropped below 67 percent.8
^ example 2
^ example 2: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.42 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/4137516
The mass uprising in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was an exceptionally moderate period in the history of Palestinian terrorism. The revolt from December 1987 to January 1991 killed only twenty Israeli civilians.
Edy Kaufman has noted that "the primary purpose of the first intifada was to communicate to Israelis the need to end the occupation of the territories."113 Terrorist acts, even in small numbers, interfered with the message. Throughout the intifada, only 15 percent of Palestinian demonstrations were violent.114 Yet an absolute majority of Israelis (80 percent) believed that the means employed by the Palestinians to protest Israeli rule were "mainly violent." Of the violent Palestinian acts, the vast majority consisted of rock throwing against the Israel Defense Forces in the territories, with few incidences of terrorism inside the Green Line. An even broader consensus of Israelis (93 percent) felt that the intifada was directed "both towards civilians and towards the army."'11
Compelling evidence suggests, however, that terrorism informed the Israeli view of Palestinian objectives. In a fascinating study based on the polling data contained in the Guttman report, Kaufman observed that the respondents who perceived Palestinian tactics as "mainly violent" were more likely to believe that the Palestinian goal was to "destroy Israel." Conversely, the more Israelis perceived Palestinian tactics as nonviolent, the more they believed the goal was to liberate the territories. The positive correlation between perceived Palestinian terrorism and maximalist objectives existed independent of the respondents' political affiliation, suggesting that the association was not a function of their preexisting political attitudes.11
Economic Cost
GPI 2015: violence containment (including military spending, fighting violent crime, homicide, civil conflict, and terrorism) amounts to 13% of world GDP
GPI 2015: violence containment (including military spending, fighting violent crime, homicide, civil conflict, and terrorism) amounts to 13% of world GDP: http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Global-Peace-Index-Report-2015_0.pdf
GPI 2015: more urbanized countries tend to have higher peacefulness
Motivations
1/3 of white extremist killers explicitly cite other white extremist killers
1/3 of white extremist killers explicitly cite other white extremist killers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html http://archive.is/Nui89 An analysis by The New York Times of recent terrorism attacks found that at least a third of white extremist killers since 2011 were inspired by others who perpetrated similar attacks, professed a reverence for them or showed an interest in their tactics.
Coverage
the media is 3x more likely to label an Islamist attack as "terrorism" than a far-right attack
the media is 3x more likely to label an Islamist attack as "terrorism" than a far-right attack: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/10/media-are-reluctant-label-far-right-attackers-terrorists-study-says https://www.signal-ai.com/blog/lessons-from-christchurch-how-the-media-finally-acknowledged-far-right-terrorism In over 200, 000 articles on 11 different attacks, Islamist extremists were labelled terrorists 78.4% of the time, whereas far-right extremists were only identified as terrorists 23.6% of the time.
Polls
the troops think white nationalism is a problem
the troops think white nationalism is a problem: https://www.armytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2017/10/23/military-times-poll-one-in-four-troops-sees-white-nationalism-in-the-ranks/ Nearly 42 percent of non-white troops who responded to the survey said they have personally experienced examples of white nationalism in the military, versus about 18 percent of white service members. When asked whether white nationalists pose a threat to national security, 30 percent of respondents labeled it a significant danger, more than many international hot spots, like Syria (27 percent), Pakistan (25 percent), Afghanistan (22 percent) and Iraq (17 percent). [....] More than 60 percent of troops who took the survey said they would support activating the National Guard or reserves to handle civil unrest arising from white nationalist activities like the Charlottesville event.
Left-Wing vs Right-Wing Terrorism
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/200612_Jones_DomesticTerrorism_v6.pdf https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/200616_Jones_Methodology_v3_0.pdf
In analyzing fatalities from terrorist attacks, religious terrorism has killed the largest number of individuals 3,086 people primarily due to the attacks on September 11, 2001, which caused 2,977 deaths.10 The magnitude of this death toll fundamentally shaped U.S. counterterrorism policy over the past two decades. In comparison, right-wing terrorist attacks caused 335 deaths, left-wing attacks caused 22 deaths, and ethnonationalist terrorists caused 5 deaths. To evaluate the ongoing threat from different types of terrorists, however, it is useful to consider the proportion of fatalities attributed to each type of perpetrator annually. In 14 of the 21 years between 1994 and 2019 in which fatal terrorist attacks occurred, the majority of deaths resulted from right-wing attacks. In eight of these years, right-wing attackers caused all of the fatalities, and in three more including 2018 and 2019 they were responsible for more than 90 percent of annual fatalities.11 Therefore, while religious terrorists caused the largest number of total fatalities, right-wing attackers were most likely to cause more deaths in a given year
left-wing extremists aren't murderers; right-wing extremists are
left-wing extremists aren't murderers; right-wing extremists are: https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683984.pdf White supremacists, anti-government extremists, radical Islamist extremists, and other ideologically inspired domestic violent extremists have been active in the United States for decades. [....] [F]rom September 12, 2001 through December 31, 2016, attacks by domestic or homegrown violent extremists in the United States resulted in 225 fatalities, according to the ECDB. Of these, 106 were killed by far right violent extremists in 62 separate incidents, and 119 were victims of radical Islamist violent extremists in 23 separate incidents. Figure 1 shows the locations and number of fatalities involved in these incidents. A detailed list of the incidents can be found in appendix II. **According to the ECDB, activities of far left wing violent extremist groups did not result in any fatalities during this period.**
leftist extremists have killed almost nobody in the past 30 years; rightist extremists have killed hundreds
^ database
Incidents: Far-Right Terrorisms, Murders, and Attempted Murders in North America
17 June 2019: Incel, white nationalist Brian Clyde was shot dead while trying to shoot up a mall
27 April 2019: White nationalist John Earnest killed 1 and injured 3 in the Chabad of Poway
27 April 2019: White nationalist John Earnest killed 1 and injured 3 in the Chabad of Poway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poway_synagogue_shooting Earnest published an open letter on 8chan that claimed Jews were causing the "meticulously planned genocide of the European race": https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/california-police-investigate-hate-filled-8chan-manifesto-that-could-link-synagogue-shooting-to-mosque-attack
15 February 2019: White nationalist Christopher Hasson, Coast Guard officer, was arrested with 15 firearms, 1,000 rounds of ammo, and a list of prominent Democratic politicians
15 February 2019: White nationalist Christopher Hasson, Coast Guard officer, was arrested with 15 firearms, 1,000 rounds of ammo, and a list of prominent Democratic politicians: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/20/696470366/arrested-coast-guard-officer-planned-mass-terrorist-attack-on-a-scale-rarely-see
19-20 January 2019: Police arrested Brian Colaneri, Vincent Vetromile, Andrew Crysel, and one minor, were arrested with 3 bombs and 23 firearms and a plan to attack the Muslim town of Islamberg
02 November 2018: Scott Beierle killed 2 people and injured 4 people in the Tallahassee Hot Yoga before killing himself
27 October 2018: Robert Bowers shouted "all Jews must die" before shooting 16 people at the Tree of Life synagogue
27 October 2018: Robert Bowers shouted "all Jews must die" before shooting 16 people at the Tree of Life synagogue: https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/10/27/heavy-police-presence-near-synagogue-in-squirrel-hill/ On Gab, he wrote "Trump is a globalist, not a nationalist. There is no MAGA as long as there is a k\*ke infestation." and "It's the filthy Evil Jews Bringing Filfy evil Muslims into the country! Stop the K\*kes then Worry about the Muslims." https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-screw-your-optics-i-m-going-in-who-is-the-suspected-pittsburgh-shooter-1.6595724 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting
22-26 October 2018: Cesar Sayoc mailed "bombs" to 2 CNN employees and 10 Democratic officials
23 April 2018: Alek Minassian targeted pedestrians with a van and killed 10 and injured 16
23 April 2018: Alek Minassian targeted pedestrians with a van and killed 10 and injured 16: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_van_attack In a Facebook post before the attack, Minassian wrote: "The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!": https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-van-attack-driver-profile-alek-minassian-1.4632435 http://archive.is/JhphD
14 February 2018: White supremacist Nikolas Cruz killed 17 and injured 16 in a school shooting
02 February 2018: Atomwaffen Division member Samuel Woodward was arraigned for the murder of Blaze Bernstein (a gay, Jewish student). Bernstein had been stabbed over 20 times and buried in a pit dug in the forest
02 February 2018: Atomwaffen Division member Samuel Woodward was arraigned for the murder of Blaze Bernstein (a gay, Jewish student). Bernstein had been stabbed over 20 times and buried in a pit dug in the forest: https://www.propublica.org/article/california-murder-suspect-atomwaffen-division-extremist-hate-group http://archive.is/M5850 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Blaze_Bernstein Atomwaffen members celebrated the murder in leaked Discord messages: https://www.propublica.org/article/atomwaffen-division-inside-white-hate-group
09 January 2018: Atomwaffen Division member Brandon Russell was convicted for possession explosives and radioactive material. Russell intended to bomb synagogues and a nuclear power plant. Russell had a framed photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in his bedroom
09 January 2018: Atomwaffen Division member Brandon Russell was convicted for possession explosives and radioactive material. Russell intended to bomb synagogues and a nuclear power plant. Russell had a framed photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in his bedroom: http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/tampa-neo-nazi-wanted-to-target-power-lines-nuclear-reactors-and/2327043 http://www.tbo.com/news/military/how-did-florida-national-guard-miss-soldiers-neo-nazi-leanings/2324930 Atomwaffen members have shared documentation on explosives production in leaked Discord messages: https://www.propublica.org/article/white-supremacists-share-bomb-making-materials-in-online-chats
23 December 2017: Neo-Nazi Nicholas Giampa killed his lover's parents, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker and Scott Fricker, because they didn't accept his ideology
07 December 2017: White supremacist William Atchison went into Aztec High School and killed 2 students before killing himself
26 May 2017: White supremacist Jeremy Christian stabbed three men, two of whom died. The men had tried to stop Christian from harassing two teenage girls (one black, one Muslim) on a light rail train.
22 May 2017: White supremacist Sean Urbanski fatally stabbed Lieutenant Richard Collins (black) because of his race
20 March 2017: White supremacist James Jackson drove to NYC with a sword with intent to kill black men. Jackson fatally stabbed 66-year-old Timothy Caughman, who had been collecting cans for recycling
29 January 2017: Alexandre Bissonnette killed 6 and injured 19 attendees to the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City
16 August 2016: White supremacist Daniel Rowe non-fatally stabbed an interracial couple; afterward, he told police he did it because the police "couldn t hurt the black people on the street" like he could
16 August 2016: White supremacist Daniel Rowe non-fatally stabbed an interracial couple; afterward, he told police he did it because the police "couldn t hurt the black people on the street" like he could: https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/crime/article180712076.html https://www.reuters.com/article/us-washington-hatecrime-idUSKCN10T21Z
1 October 2015: Chris Harper-Mercer killed 9 and injured 8 people at Umpqua Community College before killing himself
1 October 2015: Chris Harper-Mercer killed 9 and injured 8 people at Umpqua Community College before killing himself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umpqua_Community_College_shooting Harper-Mercer frequently used 4chan and posted to /r9k/ the day before the shooting. Harper-Mercer wrote that he was mad that he was a virgin and that black men were to blame: https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/oregon-umpqua-community-college-shooting/ https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oregon-shooting-20151002-story.html
17 June 2015: Dylann Roof killed 9 and injured 3 in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston
17 June 2015: Dylann Roof killed 9 and injured 3 in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_church_shooting Roof frequently posed with apartheid paraphernalia published a manifesto calling for white nationalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_church_shooting#Perpetrator
23 May 2014: Incel Elliot Rodger killed 6 and injured 14 before killing himself in Isla Vista
23 May 2014: Incel Elliot Rodger killed 6 and injured 14 before killing himself in Isla Vista: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings
13 April 2014: KKK member and neo-Nazi Frazier Miller killed 3 people in the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and in the Village Shalom
13 April 2014: KKK member and neo-Nazi Frazier Miller killed 3 people in the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and in the Village Shalom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overland_Park_Jewish_Community_Center_shooting
05 August 2012: White supremacist Michael Page killed 6 and injured 4 at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek
05 August 2012: White supremacist Michael Page killed 6 and injured 4 at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Sikh_temple_shooting
Motivations
the proportion of foreign Muslims joining ISIS is positively correlated with GDP per capita and Human Development Index, negatively correlated with Gini Index (higher=more unequal), not correlated with unemployment, negatively correlated with political rights, negatively correlated with ethnic fractionalization (higher=more diverse), negatively correlated with linguistic fractionalization, and not correlated with religious fractionalization: -- however, many of these relationships are not significant (see tables 7 and 8)
the proportion of foreign Muslims joining ISIS is positively correlated with GDP per capita and Human Development Index, negatively correlated with Gini Index (higher=more unequal), not correlated with unemployment, negatively correlated with political rights, negatively correlated with ethnic fractionalization (higher=more diverse), negatively correlated with linguistic fractionalization, and not correlated with religious fractionalization: -- however, many of these relationships are not significant (see tables 7 and 8): https://www.nber.org/papers/w22190.pdf
Public Opinion Polls
few Muslims worldwide support ISIS -- the most supportive country was Nigeria, where 14% of Muslims supported ISIS
Over Countries
religiosity by country
Among Scientists
in the USA, scientists are disproportionately (~41%, 10x more likely) atheist
in the USA, scientists are disproportionately (~41%, 10x more likely) atheist: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief
the same trend holds woldwide, albeit less so
Among Philosphers
in the USA, philosophers are disproportionately (~72%, 18x more likely) atheist
Pseudo-Causal Evidence: Countries With
Andersen and Bentzen 2022 preprint: religious names
^ validation: Andersen and Bentzen 2022 preprint: earthquakes increase religiosity; religious names were more common among babies born <30 years or less after an earthquake
^ validation: Andersen and Bentzen 2022 preprint: people with religious names were significantly more likely to be priests and theologians and people with non-religious names were significantly more likely to be engineers, chemists, and scientists
^ validation: Andersen and Bentzen 2022 preprint: people with religious names were significantly more likely to be priests and theologians and people with non-religious names were significantly more likely to be engineers, chemists, and scientists: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=16938 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4026842 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/951603153785200700/andersen2022.pdf
^ validation: Andersen and Bentzen 2022 preprint: strong correlation between lower religiosity and higher economic growth, as proxied by growth of urban centers
^ validation: Andersen and Bentzen 2022 preprint: this correlation was even stronger after 1800, when upper-tail knowledge production (ie, cutting-edge science and technical work) became increasingly important for economic growth
^ validation: Andersen and Bentzen 2022 preprint: this correlation was even stronger after 1800, when upper-tail knowledge production (ie, cutting-edge science and technical work) became increasingly important for economic growth: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=16938 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4026842 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/951603153785200700/andersen2022.pdf
Khalil and Panza 2021: todo reread xxx
Squicciarini (2020) documented that French areas that were more religious in the late 19th century were less likely to introduce new technical curriculum in schools, thus forgoing skills essential for experiencing the second industrial revolution in France
Squicciarini (2020) documented that French areas that were more religious in the late 19th century were less likely to introduce new technical curriculum in schools, thus forgoing skills essential for experiencing the second industrial revolution in France
^ todo reread xxx:
For instance, the emphasis on tradition in most religions may discourage certain behaviors such as innovation and creativity, which are otherwise beneficial to economic growth (B enabou et al., forthc). B enabou, Ticchi, and Vindigni illustrate the potential contesting between the worldviews of science and religion in a theoretical model, where the recurrent arrival of scientific discoveries generate productivity gains, but at the same time threaten to erode religious beliefs by contradicting aspects of religious doctrines. As a result, religious elites have incentives to curb the development of science and new ideas. Examples abound of such conflicts, from the trial of Galilei in 1633 to President George W. Bush s restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. In support of the model, Benabou, Ticchi, and Vindigni uncover that contemporary countries or US states that are more religious have fewer patents per capita. An alternative model may explain the same tendency with substitution between religion and science; if intellectual resources can be used for either religious or scientific studies, religiously interested individuals may be more inclined to engage in religious studies, thus crowding out the study of science. The proposition is not that religion and science cannot go hand-in-hand. Indeed, there are several examples of great contributors to science who were deeply religious - perhaps most famously Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Also, some of Europe s largest universities - Bologna and Oxford for instance - were established by monasteries. Thus, it remains a matter of empirical testing whether religion and science contested or complemented one another.
For instance, the emphasis on tradition in most religions may discourage certain behaviors such as innovation and creativity, which are otherwise beneficial to economic growth (B enabou et al., forthc). B enabou, Ticchi, and Vindigni illustrate the potential contesting between the worldviews of science and religion in a theoretical model, where the recurrent arrival of scientific discoveries generate productivity gains, but at the same time threaten to erode religious beliefs by contradicting aspects of religious doctrines. As a result, religious elites have incentives to curb the development of science and new ideas. Examples abound of such conflicts, from the trial of Galilei in 1633 to President George W. Bush s restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. In support of the model, Benabou, Ticchi, and Vindigni uncover that contemporary countries or US states that are more religious have fewer patents per capita. An alternative model may explain the same tendency with substitution between religion and science; if intellectual resources can be used for either religious or scientific studies, religiously interested individuals may be more inclined to engage in religious studies, thus crowding out the study of science. The proposition is not that religion and science cannot go hand-in-hand. Indeed, there are several examples of great contributors to science who were deeply religious - perhaps most famously Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Also, some of Europe s largest universities - Bologna and Oxford for instance - were established by monasteries. Thus, it remains a matter of empirical testing whether religion and science contested or complemented one another.
^ todo reread xxx:
Along the same lines, Cantoni & Yuchtman (2013) argue that the introduction of a new, productive form of human capital, such as the emergence of modern science, depends on whether the government or church see the new knowledge as threatening to their position of power. The authors argue that Islamic elites who controlled educational institutions in the Middle Ages initially promoted the study of logic and science, because the gains from spreading these skills (more converts to Islam) outweighed the costs (potential criticism of the religious elites). This period of elite support for scientific study saw the flourishing of Islamic society. However, as Islam took over in the Middle East, the gains to elites from the study of logic and science declined. Elites started to oppress the study of science, and the Muslim world fell behind. Chaney (2016) provides econometric support for these ideas. He links the decline in scientific and technological production in the Muslim world in the late Medieval period to the extensive spread of madrasas, educational centers where Islamic law was taught. Using data on book production during the period 800-1800, Chaney documents a sharply rising trend in the proportion of religious books written, accompanied by a drop in original and scientific-technical books. With our data, we can test empirically whether something similar occurred within Europe.
Along the same lines, Cantoni & Yuchtman (2013) argue that the introduction of a new, productive form of human capital, such as the emergence of modern science, depends on whether the government or church see the new knowledge as threatening to their position of power. The authors argue that Islamic elites who controlled educational institutions in the Middle Ages initially promoted the study of logic and science, because the gains from spreading these skills (more converts to Islam) outweighed the costs (potential criticism of the religious elites). This period of elite support for scientific study saw the flourishing of Islamic society. However, as Islam took over in the Middle East, the gains to elites from the study of logic and science declined. Elites started to oppress the study of science, and the Muslim world fell behind. Chaney (2016) provides econometric support for these ideas. He links the decline in scientific and technological production in the Muslim world in the late Medieval period to the extensive spread of madrasas, educational centers where Islamic law was taught. Using data on book production during the period 800-1800, Chaney documents a sharply rising trend in the proportion of religious books written, accompanied by a drop in original and scientific-technical books. With our data, we can test empirically whether something similar occurred within Europe.
Country-Wide Correlations Between Religiosity and Education: Negative
Stoet 2017: more-religious countries have worse scientific education performance; this effect is partially explained by HDI levels
Country-Wide Correlations Between Religiosity and Life Expectancy, Infant Mortality, Compulsory Education: Negative
Cinagrelli 2019: across countries 1981-2015, higher religiosity (how often attend religious services) and Muslim majority population correlates with lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and lower years of compulsory education
Cinagrelli 2019: across countries 1981-2015, higher religiosity (how often attend religious services) and Muslim majority population correlates with lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and lower years of compulsory education: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/730069/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1353/hrq.2019.0050 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/743862675657850901/cingranelli2019.pdf
How often do you attend religious services? The Attendance variable included in our analysis is the percentage of respondents in each nation who claimed to attend services at least once per month.
Do you consider yourself to be a religious person? Respondents could respond yes, no, atheist, or don t know. The variable labeled Religious Person in the regression tables below is the percentage of respondents in each country who answered yes.
[E]ach country that was more than 50 percent Muslim was coded as ONE. All other countries are coded as ZERO.
Intelligence and Intuition
Zuckerman 2013: in meta-study of 63 studies, higher religiosity correlates with lower intelligence
Zuckerman 2013: the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence may be explained by the fact that more-religious people think more "intuitively" (fast, unsystematic) while less religious people think more "analytically" (slow, systematic)
Zuckerman 2013: the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence may be explained by the fact that more-religious people think more "intuitively" (fast, unsystematic) while less religious people think more "analytically" (slow, systematic) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088868313497266 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1088868313497266 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/886791479127863306/zuckerman2013.pdf
Addiction
religion, gambling, and getting high all produce the same mental state
Altruism and Religion
in children, religiosity correlates negatively with altruism (positively with selfishness)
Suicide
a meta-study of found that religiosity correlated with substantially lower suicide rates (rates 1/3), but only among Western samples
a meta-study of found that religiosity correlated with substantially lower suicide rates (rates 1/3), but only among Western samples: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131715 https://sci-hub.se/10.1371/journal.pone.0131715
^ discussion of some of the literature
^ discussion of some of the literature: https://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/2016/11000/Religion_as_a_Risk_Factor_for_Suicide_Attempt_and.8.aspx https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/NMD.0000000000000484
The relationship between religion and suicide risk has been an important research question from the earliest days of suicide research (Durkheim, 1897/2010). Over the past 10 years, research on this question has produced mixed results. Some studies have reported that rates of suicide attempt and suicidal ideation are lower among persons who have a religious affiliation (Carli et al., 2014; Dervic et al., 2004; Dervic et al., 2011; Kralovec et al., 2014; Kukoyi et al., 2010; Spencer et al., 2012), those who attend religious services more frequently (Blackmore et al., 2008; Caribe et al., 2012; Hoffman and Marsiglia, 2014; Kaslow et al., 2004; Langille et al., 2012; Nkansah-Amankra et al., 2012; Rasic et al., 2009; Rasic et al., 2011a; Rasic et al., 2011b; Robins and Fiske, 2009; Robinson et al., 2012; Rushing et al., 2013; Sisask et al., 2010; Taliaferro et al., 2009; Taylor et al., 2011), and those who say religion is important in their lives (Albert et al., 2005; Rasic et al., 2011a). However, these findings exist alongside a large number of studies finding no relationship between religion and suicide risk (Birkholz et al., 2004; Chatters et al., 2011; Hamdan et al., 2012; Huguelet et al., 2007; Le et al., 2012; Nonnemaker et al., 2003; Stroppa and Moreira-Almeida, 2013; Tran Thi Thanh et al., 2006; Young et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2006) and a few studies suggesting religious characteristics can sometimes be a risk factor (Mihaljevic et al., 2012; Stratta et al., 2012; Xie et al., 2012; Zhang and Xu, 2007; Zhao et al., 2012). Importantly, most of these studies did not assess clinical samples, and only 4 explicitly enrolled persons with mood disorders (Dervic et al., 2004; Dervic et al., 2011; Rushing et al., 2013; Stroppa and Moreira-Almeida, 2013) This leaves unanswered questions not only about the relationship between religion and suicide risk, but also more specifically about that relationship for adults with depression.
Political Views in the Us
athiests are the demographic most likely to describe themselves as liberal (56%) and least likely as consevative (10%)
athiests are the demographic most likely to describe themselves as liberal (56%) and least likely as consevative (10%): https://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/chapter-4-social-and-political-attitudes/
just 4% of atheists voted for Donald Trump in 2016
Democracy-Autocracy
Cingranelli 2019: across countries 1981-2015, higher religiosity (how often attend religious services) and Muslim majority population correlates with lower respect for human rights (free assembly & association, free & fair elections, free speech)
Cingranelli 2019: across countries 1981-2015, higher religiosity (how often attend religious services) and Muslim majority population correlates with lower respect for human rights (free assembly & association, free & fair elections, free speech): https://muse.jhu.edu/article/730069/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1353/hrq.2019.0050 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/743862675657850901/cingranelli2019.pdf
How often do you attend religious services? The Attendance variable included in our analysis is the percentage of respondents in each nation who claimed to attend services at least once per month.
Do you consider yourself to be a religious person? Respondents could respond yes, no, atheist, or don t know. The variable labeled Religious Person in the regression tables below is the percentage of respondents in each country who answered yes.
[E]ach country that was more than 50 percent Muslim was coded as ONE. All other countries are coded as ZERO.
in relation to terrorism, the groups most opposed to suspending government checks and balances, censoring of the press, and banning Muslim immigration are the nonreligious, Jews and Muslims
Tolerance-Tradition: Overall
Gaskins 2013: except at very low HDI, higher religiosity correlates with higher conservatism (on left-right self-placement, divorce, euthanasia, abortion, suicide, and homosexuality)
Tolerance-Tradition: Sexism
Cingranelli 2019: across countries 1981-2015, higher religiosity (how often attend religious services) and Muslim majority population correlate with worse women's rights (right to vote, run for office, proportion of offices held by women) and worse protections for female domestic violence victims
Cingranelli 2019: across countries 1981-2015, higher religiosity (how often attend religious services) and Muslim majority population correlate with worse women's rights (right to vote, run for office, proportion of offices held by women) and worse protections for female domestic violence victims: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/730069/ https://sci-hub.se/10.1353/hrq.2019.0050 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/743862675657850901/cingranelli2019.pdf
Hannover 2018: among German adolescents, religiosity is associated with sexism, fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation among atheists, Muslims, and Christians
Tolerance-Tradition: Racism
in the USA, religiosity is associated with racism
Status Quo Justification
Shepherd 2016: among the religious, mentioning religion increases the perceived trustworthiness of politicians
Shepherd 2016: among the religious who believe the USA is in decline, belief that God has a plan for the USA increases support for existing political systems
Humor
Silvia 2021: right-wing authoritarians were rated as less funny in this study
there were 140 documented fatalities from faith healing between 1975 and 1995
Leftist Bible Quotes
James 5:1-6, NIV
James 5:1-6, NIV: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+5%3A1-6&version=NIV Warning to Rich Oppressors: 5 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[a] 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Blame Yourself for Lust, Not Women
Matthew 5:27-30, NIV
Matthew 5:27-30, NIV: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A27-30&version=NIV 27 You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. [a] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Christianity and Debt Forgiveness / Debt Jubilees
Sanders 2020: Jesus Christ supported debt jubilees; the "Our Father" prayer was intended as a reference to both debt forgiveness and sin forgiveness
early christians were communalists
early christians were communalists: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ecaf.12211 The notion that indigence might generate a legitimate claim to succour never entered into a donor s deliberations: poor relief, a core purpose of welfare, never evolved in Roman philanthropy. [....] Christians adopted approaches to welfare that were new to Roman eyes. The very first community of Christians, in first-century Jerusalem, hosted free communal meals; deacons were appointed to oversee distribution of the common fund that had been endowed by wealthy members of the congregation though property sales (Acts 4 6). [....] Tertullian bracketed his community s income, deposita pietatis, with corresponding spending on beneficiaries, alumni confessionis. [....] Christianity was on the pathway to a model of society where, according to Andrea Giardina (2007, p. 768), poverty assumed a central position, in the collective imagination as in the redistribution of wealth . [....] Ambrose was an unbending defender of property rights, in particular of the right of the church to own property, quite logically so because such rights were a prerequisite for dispensing benevolentia. [....] Sermons such as these had practical implications for welfare provision. Lists of paupers eligible for support were compiled, called matricula; according to John Chrysostomos, in Antioch the number came to 3,000 (John Chrysostomos 1888, pp. 706 7).
Bible Quote: Jesus Christ Was a Debate Bro
Christians should be "ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account" for Christ's existence: (1 Peter 3:14-16, NASB)
Christians should be "ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account" for Christ's existence: (1 Peter 3:14-16, NASB): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+3%3A14-16&version=NASB
14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you [a]are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be in dread, 15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, but with gentleness and respect; 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who disparage your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.
Bible Quote: The Day Zombies Stormed Jerusalem
literalist Christians believe that a bunch of zombies came up when Jesus was resurrected, and these zombies were widely seen in Jerusalem: (Matthew 27:50-54, NIV)
literalist Christians believe that a bunch of zombies came up when Jesus was resurrected, and these zombies were widely seen in Jerusalem: (Matthew 27:50-54, NIV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+27%3A50-54&version=NIV
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus resurrection and[a] went into the holy city and appeared to many people. 54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, Surely he was the Son of God!
Carrier 2017: quip about the subject: "if we read that in any other text, you'd say, well, that did not actually happen"
Carrier 2017: quip about the subject: "if we read that in any other text, you'd say, well, that did not actually happen": https://youtu.be/bQmMFQzrEsc?t=782
The horde of undead: I don't know if you remember, but in the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus dies all the tombs open and a horde of undead descend on Jerusalem and they're "seen by many". I mean, come on if we read that in any other text, you'd say, well, that did not actually happen.
apologist response: but the fragment of Quadratus mentions them! reality: the fragment of Quadratus claims that some of those resurrected "survived even down to our own times", opposite the "holy body" claim
apologist response: but the fragment of Quadratus mentions them! reality: the fragment of Quadratus claims that some of those resurrected "survived even down to our own times", opposite the "holy body" claim: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0850.htm https://archive.ph/wip/WH2ZK
Our Saviour's works, moreover, were always present: for they were real, consisting of those who had been healed of their diseases, those who had been raised from the dead; who were not only seen while they were being healed and raised up, but were afterwards constantly present. Nor did they remain only during the sojourn of the Saviour on earth, but also a considerable time after His departure; and, indeed, some of them have survived even down to our own times.
apologist response: but everyone was illiterate! reality: Josephus extensively discusses many tiny Jewish sects in Jerusalem during the same time period, such as that of John the Baptist: Ehrman 1999
apologist response: the passage is not literal, it's poetic: Licona 2011a
apologist counter-response: abandoning this passage as not-literal means abandoning the Bible as inerrant: Rochford 2022
Bible Quotes: Other Resurrections
another person Jesus raised from the dead: Jesus raised Lazarus: John 11:38-44
another person Jesus raised from the dead: Jesus raised Lazarus: John 11:38-44: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+11%3A38-44&version=NIV
Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead 38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 Take away the stone, he said. But, Lord, said Martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days. 40 Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me. 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, Take off the grave clothes and let him go.
another person Jesus raised from the dead: Jesus raised Jairus the synagogue leader's daughter: Mark 5:21-43 (NIV)
another person Jesus raised from the dead: Jesus raised Jairus the synagogue leader's daughter: Mark 5:21-43 (NIV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+5%3A21-43&version=NIV
Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman 21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. 24 So Jesus went with him. [....] He took her by the hand and said to her, Talitha koum! (which means Little girl, I say to you, get up! ). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Sources to Cover: All Mentioned Here
Sources to cover: todo
Carrier: todo
Also Review These
Summary
Just four non-Christian writers mentioned Jesus (or something plausibly about Jesus) within the first hundred years after his death: Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, Josephus. Mishnah sources were hundreds of years after Jesus' death and are unreliable. Those four sources say almost nothing of value about Jesus: Pliny claims his followers worship him "as a God", Suetonius is talking about someone else, Tacitus claims Jesus was "repressed" by Pontius Pilate in Judea.
Just four non-Christian writers mentioned Jesus (or something plausibly about Jesus) within the first hundred years after his death: Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, Josephus. Mishnah sources were hundreds of years after Jesus' death and are unreliable. Those four sources say almost nothing of value about Jesus: Pliny claims his followers worship him "as a God", Suetonius is talking about someone else, Tacitus claims Jesus was "repressed" by Pontius Pilate in Judea.
Atheist Historicist Bart Erhman
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: acknowledges the relative historical silence on Jesus: "What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing." "In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus' name ever so much as mentioned."
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: acknowledges the relative historical silence on Jesus: "What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing." "In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus' name ever so much as mentioned." https://www.worldcat.org/title/39985521 https://u1lib.org/book/1211836/792386 https://archive.org/details/jesusapocalyptic0000ehrm_l7z0/page/56/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017531463253643315/ehrman1999.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018379082288877608/ehrman1999ch4.pdf
The vast majority of people in the Roman Empire, therefore, were pagans. What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus' name ever so much as mentioned.
Ehrman 1999: to understand Jesus whatsoever, we cannot use the pagan or Jewish sources, which provide no reliable personal details on Jesus: we must turn to the extra-Biblical Christian writings
Ehrman 1999: to understand Jesus whatsoever, we cannot use the pagan or Jewish sources, which provide no reliable personal details on Jesus: we must turn to the extra-Biblical Christian writings: https://www.worldcat.org/title/39985521 https://u1lib.org/book/1211836/792386 https://archive.org/details/jesusapocalyptic0000ehrm_l7z0/page/56/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017531463253643315/ehrman1999.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1018379082288877608/ehrman1999ch4.pdf
A Sobering Subtotal: Jewish and Pagan Sources for Jesus What, then, do we learn about Jesus from non-Christian sources of his day? Not much. I have given here every single reference to Jesus that survives in pagan or Jewish sources written within an entire century of his death. As a result, if we want to know what Jesus said and did during his life, we have no choice but to turn to sources produced by his followers. Fortunately, there are some such sources that exist outside of the New Testament Gospels. Before returning to the Gospels themselves, we may do well to consider the character of these other sources, to see what they can tell us about Jesus' life and death.
Texts Which Do Not Mention Jesus
Sources Todo
Lataster 2015
Background
summary: Pliny the Younger (61-113), a magistrate in Rome, wrote dozens of letters to Trajan (53-117), a Roman emperor (98-117). Some of Pliny and Trajan's letters to each other are preserved in the "Trajan Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Epistolarum libros decem" or "Letters of the Younger Pliny". Pliny mentions that Christians recite a hymn to Christ, as if he were a god. But Pliny makes no mention of any details related to Yeshua ben Nazareth himself, such as his cause of death.
summary: Pliny the Younger (61-113), a magistrate in Rome, wrote dozens of letters to Trajan (53-117), a Roman emperor (98-117). Some of Pliny and Trajan's letters to each other are preserved in the "Trajan Caii Plinii Caecilii Secundi Epistolarum libros decem" or "Letters of the Younger Pliny". Pliny mentions that Christians recite a hymn to Christ, as if he were a god. But Pliny makes no mention of any details related to Yeshua ben Nazareth himself, such as his cause of death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan
Pliny Is the First Pagan Source to Mention Jesus
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: Pliny the Younger is the first reference to Jesus in any pagan account
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: Pliny the Younger is the first reference to Jesus in any pagan account: https://www.worldcat.org/title/39985521 https://u1lib.org/book/1211836/792386 https://archive.org/details/jesusapocalyptic0000ehrm_l7z0/page/56/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017531463253643315/ehrman1999.pdf
The first reference to Jesus in any surviving pagan account does not come until the year 112 CE. It appears in a letter written by a governor of the Roman province of Bithynia-Pontus (northwestern part of modern-day Turkey), a Roman official named Pliny. Historians usually refer to him as Pliny the Younger, to distinguish him from his equally famous uncle called, as you might imagine, Pliny the Elder, a widely read and prolific scientist (whose scientific curiosity led to his demise, as it turns out; when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE he decided to investigate at close range and, well, that was the end of Pliny the Elder). During his tenure as governor of his province, Pliny the Younger was in close contact with the Roman emperor, Trajan. Copies of the letters that they sent back and forth at the time still survive.
Pliny: Didn't Investigate Anything Beyond Illegal Assembly
Carrier 2022: the Roman's weren't interested in investigating Jesus's life or resurrection, because they were a non-violent niche religious group
Carrier 2022: the Roman's weren't interested in investigating Jesus's life or resurrection, because they were a non-violent niche religious group: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16832 https://archive.ph/wip/1zT5F
As I also said ( 1), even Pliny the Younger didn t investigate the resurrection of Jesus. And as for Pliny, so for Pilate. Maybe Sheffield should actually read Pliny s letter. Then he d learn Pliny conducted no investigation of the supernatural claims of Christians. Pliny tells us what he did investigate and it was not the resurrection claim.[1] This disproves Sheffield s false assertion that he did, or any Romans would. To the contrary, Pliny says he was only interested in the crime of illegal assembly, and that the religious claims Christians made so disinterested him that as soon as he learned what they were he stopped investigating those claims, dismissing them outright. Exactly the opposite of what Sheffield claims. Trajan then even instructed Pliny to press no investigations, that it was even unworthy of the Empire to do so. Again exactly the opposite of what Sheffield claims. Christians are not to be hunted out, Trajan says, as that is not in consonance with the spirit of our age, instead he instructs Pliny Christians are only to be investigated for illegal association. No interest in the resurrection belief. It s dismissed without inquiry. They literally care not one whit about it. As for Trajan, so for Pilate.
Text of Letter From Pliny to Trajan (Only Mention of "Christian" in His Letters)
Firth 1900: Letters / Epistulae Book 10 Section 96 (10.96): Pliny to Trajan 112 CE (79/82 years after Jesus died): please advise me on whether Christians should be persecuted for being Christians, or whether cursing Christ and worshipping our gods is sufficient
Firth 1900: Letters / Epistulae Book 10 Section 96 (10.96): Pliny to Trajan 112 CE (79/82 years after Jesus died): please advise me on whether Christians should be persecuted for being Christians, or whether cursing Christ and worshipping our gods is sufficient: http://www.attalus.org/old/pliny10b.html#96 https://worldcat.org/title/1079431339 https://u1lib.org/book/5346298/0cecb3 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1016443270055862363/firth1900.pdf http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Ep.+10.96 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi1318.phi001.perseus-lat1:10.96
I have never been present at any legal examination of the Christians, and I do not know, therefore, what are the usual penalties passed upon them, or the limits of those penalties, or how searching an inquiry should be made. I have hesitated a great deal in considering whether any distinctions should be drawn according to the ages of the accused; whether the weak should be punished as severely as the more robust; whether if they renounce their faith they should be pardoned, or whether the man who has once been a Christian should gain nothing by recanting; whether the name itself, even though otherwise innocent of crime, should be punished, or only the crimes that gather round it.
Cognitionibus de Christianis interfui numquam: ideo nescio quid et quatenus aut puniri soleat aut quaeri. Nec mediocriter haesitavi, sitne aliquod discrimen aetatum, an quamlibet teneri nihil a robustioribus differant; detur paenitentiae venia, an ei, qui omnino Christianus fuit, desisse non prosit; nomen ipsum, si flagitiis careat, an flagitia cohaerentia nomini puniantur.
Firth 1900: Letters / Epistulae Book 10 Section 96 (10.96): Pliny to Trajan 112 CE (79/82 years after Jesus died): Christians claim that they merely "recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a God", and swear against crimes
Firth 1900: Letters / Epistulae Book 10 Section 96 (10.96): Pliny to Trajan 112 CE (79/82 years after Jesus died): Christians claim that they merely "recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a God", and swear against crimes: http://www.attalus.org/old/pliny10b.html#96 https://worldcat.org/title/1079431339 https://u1lib.org/book/5346298/0cecb3 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1016443270055862363/firth1900.pdf http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Ep.+10.96 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi1318.phi001.perseus-lat1:10.96
But they declared that the sum of their guilt or their error only amounted to this, that on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a god, and that so far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, their oath was to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, and from breach of faith, and not to deny trust money placed in their keeping when called upon to deliver it.
Affirmabant autem hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta ne latrocinia ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent.
Latin Text of Letter From Trajan to Pliny (Only Mention of "Christian" in His Letters)
Firth 1900: Letters / Epistulae Book 10 Section 97 (10.97): Trajan to Pliny 112 CE (79/82 years after Jesus died): Christians should not be hunted out; if a Christian is brought before you, and they renounce their faith, they should always be pardoned
Firth 1900: Letters / Epistulae Book 10 Section 97 (10.97): Trajan to Pliny 112 CE (79/82 years after Jesus died): Christians should not be hunted out; if a Christian is brought before you, and they renounce their faith, they should always be pardoned: http://www.attalus.org/old/pliny10b.html#97 https://worldcat.org/title/1079431339 https://u1lib.org/book/5346298/0cecb3 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1016443270055862363/firth1900.pdf http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Ep.+10.97 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi1318.phi001.perseus-lat1:10.97
Actum quem debuisti, mi Secunde, in excutiendis causis eorum, qui Christiani ad te delati fuerant, secutus es. Neque enim in universum aliquid, quod quasi certam formam habeat, constitui potest. Conquirendi non sunt; si deferantur et arguantur, puniendi sunt, ita tamen ut, qui negaverit se Christianum esse idque re ipsa manifestum fecerit, id est supplicando dis nostris, quamvis suspectus in praeteritum, veniam ex paenitentia impetret. Sine auctore vero propositi libelli in nullo crimine locum habere debent. Nam et pessimi exempli nec nostri saeculi est.
Original Latin Text: Manuscript M.462 Contains No Relevant Passages
Morgan Museum: but its text is not online
Pearse 2001
Pearse 2001: https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/pliny/pliny_mss.htm Like many Silver Latin writers, there is little evidence that Pliny's letters achieved the literary fame he had desired, until the revival of these writers in the Fourth century. There is a full paraphrase of the famous letters 96 and 97 in Tertullian's Apologeticum in the second century. This material appears again in Jerome (Chron. s.a. 108) and Eusbius (HE 3.33.3) in the Fourth Century, but quoted from Tertullian. Cameron has analysed the quotation in Tertullian, and there is some indication that Tertullian may witness to at least one verbal variant which has not survived.
Edward Worth library: summarizes the controversy of the Aldine Pliny produced by Aldus Manutius
Edward Worth library: summarizes the controversy of the Aldine Pliny produced by Aldus Manutius: https://aldine.edwardworthlibrary.ie/portable-aldines/pliny/
Suetonius Is the Second Pagan Source to Plausibly Mention Jesus, but It Doesn't
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: Suetonius is the second plausible reference to Jesus in any pagan account; however, Suetonius is discussing riots by Jewish people led by "Chrestus" between 41 and 54 CE (8/11 and 21/24 years after Jesus died), who is not Jesus
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: Suetonius is the second plausible reference to Jesus in any pagan account; however, Suetonius is discussing riots by Jewish people led by "Chrestus" between 41 and 54 CE (8/11 and 21/24 years after Jesus died), who is not Jesus: https://www.worldcat.org/title/39985521 https://u1lib.org/book/1211836/792386 https://archive.org/details/jesusapocalyptic0000ehrm_l7z0/page/56/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017531463253643315/ehrman1999.pdf
A few years later, the Roman historian Suetonius made a casual comment that some scholars have taken to be a reference to Jesus. Suetonius wrote a set of biographies on the twelve Roman Caesars who had ruled up to his own time, starting with Julius Caesar. There is a lot of valuable historical information in these books, along with a lot of juicy gossip a gold mine for historians interested in major events of the early Roman Empire. In his Life of Claudius, emperor from 41 to 54 CE, Suetonius mentions riots that had occurred among the Jews in the city of Rome and says that the riots had been instigated by a person named "Chrestus." Some historians have maintained that this is a misspelling of the name "Christ." If so, then Suetonius is indicating that some of Jesus' followers had created havoc in the capital, a view possibly confirmed in the New Testament (see Acts 18:2). Unfortunately again, though, Suetonius tells us nothing about the man "Chrestus." If he does have Jesus in mind and it's only a possibility, since he may be referring, actually, to someone called Chrestus! he must be referring only to Jesus' followers, since Jesus himself had been executed some twenty years before these riots occurred.
Text of Suetonius in English
Rofle 1913: Life of Claudius / Deified Claudius Chapter XXV Section 4 (25.4): emperor Claudius expelled Jewish people from Rome in 54 CE (21/24) because they "constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus"
Rofle 1913: Life of Claudius / Deified Claudius Chapter XXV Section 4 (25.4): emperor Claudius expelled Jewish people from Rome in 54 CE (21/24) because they "constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus": https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/suet-claudius-rolfe.asp https://www.worldcat.org/title/12031250 https://archive.org/details/suetonius01suet_0/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/suetonius02suetuoft/page/n65/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017582560471175239/suetoniusVol1.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017582562266329169/suetoniusVol2.pdf
Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome. [Another form of Christus; see Tert. Apol. 3 (at the end). It is uncertain whether Suetonius is guilty of an error in chronology or is referring to some Jew of that name. The former seems probable because of the absence of "quodam". Tacitus, Ann. 15.44, uses the correct form, Christus, and states that he was executed in the reign of Tiberius]
Text of Suetonius in Latin
Ihm 1907: Divus Claudius Chapter XXV Section 4 (25.4): relevant text in Latin
Background on Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, pronounced Takitus, was a Roman historian and Senator born 56 CE and died 120 CE, or 23/26 years and 87/90 years after Jesus died. As a senator, Tacitus had access to the Senate's archives, which lends credibility to much of his historical writing. Tacitus wrote the Annals or Histories around 116 CE, or 80/83 years after Jesus died
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, pronounced Takitus, was a Roman historian and Senator born 56 CE and died 120 CE, or 23/26 years and 87/90 years after Jesus died. As a senator, Tacitus had access to the Senate's archives, which lends credibility to much of his historical writing. Tacitus wrote the Annals or Histories around 116 CE, or 80/83 years after Jesus died: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tacitus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_(Tacitus) alternate titles: "Ab Excessu divi Augusti Historiarum Libri", "Books of History from the Death of the Divine Augustus"
Tacitus Is the Third Pagan Source to Mention Jesus
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: Tacitus is the third first reference to Jesus in any pagan account
Ehrman 1999: historicist scholar: Tacitus is the third first reference to Jesus in any pagan account: https://www.worldcat.org/title/39985521 https://u1lib.org/book/1211836/792386 https://archive.org/details/jesusapocalyptic0000ehrm_l7z0/page/56/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017531463253643315/ehrman1999.pdf
In any event, in the context of his discussion of Nero's excesses against the Christians, Tacitus does manage to say something about where they had acquired their (to him) strange beliefs and so provides us with the first bit of historical information to be found about Jesus in a pagan author: "Christus, from whom their [i.e., the Christians'] name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius" (Annals 15.44). Tacitus goes on to indicate that the "superstition" that emerged in Jesus' wake first appeared in Judea before spreading to Rome itself. It is a pity that Tacitus does not tell us more. I suppose we should assume either that he didn't think additional information about Jesus was of much historical importance or that this was all he knew. Some scholars have noted that even this bit of knowledge is not altogether reliable: Pilate was in fact not a "procurator" but a "prefect"; that is, he not only oversaw revenue collection, but also had some military forces at his command. In any event, Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign. We learn nothing, however, about why Pilate ordered the execution, let alone about Jesus' life and teachings.
Authenticity of Christians in Tacitus: Weak
Even assuming the passage is totally genuine, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents Tacitus had to work with and it is unlikely that he would sift through what he did have to find the record of an obscure crucifixion which suggests that Tacitus was repeating an urban myth whose source was likely the Christians themselves,[3]:344
Even assuming the passage is totally genuine, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents Tacitus had to work with and it is unlikely that he would sift through what he did have to find the record of an obscure crucifixion which suggests that Tacitus was repeating an urban myth whose source was likely the Christians themselves,[3]:344
Carrier 2014: page 344 see above excerpt todo
Carrier 2014: The Prospect of a Christian Interpolation in Tacitus
Authenticity of Nero-Fire Passage in Tacitus: Weak
There is much to question the provenance and veracity of Annals 15.44.[4] There is no other historical confirmation that Nero persecuted Christians for the burning of Rome. Josephus[5] and Pliny the Elder - who were both in Rome in 64 CE - didn't mention Christians at all, which seems unlikely if Nero had been blaming them for the fire. Seneca the Younger's lost On Superstition also didn't mention Christianity, according to Augustine in the 4th century. Furthermore, Neither Origen nor Tertullian use this passage despite referring to or citing Tacitus elsewhere.[6]
There is much to question the provenance and veracity of Annals 15.44.[4] There is no other historical confirmation that Nero persecuted Christians for the burning of Rome. Josephus[5] and Pliny the Elder - who were both in Rome in 64 CE - didn't mention Christians at all, which seems unlikely if Nero had been blaming them for the fire. Seneca the Younger's lost On Superstition also didn't mention Christianity, according to Augustine in the 4th century. Furthermore, Neither Origen nor Tertullian use this passage despite referring to or citing Tacitus elsewhere.[6]
^ Alexander Roberts trans Schaff Philip ed 1894: the Nero-fire passage is not quoted by any Christian apologist until historian and Christian priest Sulpicius Severus (363-425), who repeats almost exactly the same statement in Chronica / Chronicle / Chronicorum Libri / Historia sacra (written 403, 370/373 years after Jesus died) Book II Chapter XXIX (2.29)
^ Alexander Roberts trans Schaff Philip ed 1894: the Nero-fire passage is not quoted by any Christian apologist until historian and Christian priest Sulpicius Severus (363-425), who repeats almost exactly the same statement in Chronica / Chronicle / Chronicorum Libri / Historia sacra (written 403, 370/373 years after Jesus died) Book II Chapter XXIX (2.29): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulpicius_Severus https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/35052.htm https://www.worldcat.org/title/30708787 https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8417180W/ https://u1lib.org/book/3194644/1b657b
He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians, and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent. Nay, even new kinds of death were invented, so that, being covered in the skins of wild beasts, they perished by being devoured by dogs, while many were crucified or slain by fire, and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that, when the day came to a close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night.
Translations of Tacitus: English
Woodman 2004: Annals of Tacitus Book XV Section 44 (15.44): Nero blamed "those, resented for their outrages, whom the public called Chrestiani"; "The source of the name was Christus, on whom, during the command of Tiberius, reprisal had been inflicted by the procurator Pontius Pilatus"
Woodman 2004: Annals of Tacitus Book XV Section 44 (15.44): Nero blamed "those, resented for their outrages, whom the public called Chrestiani"; "The source of the name was Christus, on whom, during the command of Tiberius, reprisal had been inflicted by the procurator Pontius Pilatus" https://www.worldcat.org/title/55502804 https://u1lib.org/book/693787/97a60a https://archive.org/details/woodman-annals-2004-en/page/324/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1008515377011105913/annalsWoodman2004.pdf
Such were the provisions made by human plans; next, expiations for the gods were sought and the books of the Sibyl were appealed to, as a result of which supplication was made to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina, and Juno was propitiated by matrons, first on the Capitol and then at the nearest stretch of sea, from which water was drawn to besprinkle the temple and the representation of the goddess; and sittings and vigils were celebrated by ladies who had husbands. But despite the human help, despite the princeps s lavishments and the appeasements of the gods, there was no getting away from the infamous belief that the conflagration had been ordered.Therefore, to dispel the rumor, Nero supplied defendants and inflicted the choicest punishments on those, resented for their outrages, whom the public called Chrestiani. (The source of the name was Christus, on whom, during the command of Tiberius, reprisal had been inflicted by the procurator Pontius Pilatus; and, though the baleful superstition had been stifled for the moment, there was now another outbreak, not only across Judaea, the origin of the malignancy, but also across the City, where everything frightful or shameful, of whatever provenance, converges and is celebrated.) The first to be seized were those who confessed, then, on their information, a mighty number was convicted, not so much on the charge of the conflagration as for their hatred of the human race.And, as they perished, mockeries were added, so that, covered in the hides of wild beasts, they expired from mutilation by dogs or, fixed to crosses and made flammable, on the dwindling of daylight they were burned for use as nocturnal illumination. Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle and he produced circus games, mingling with the plebs in the dress of a charioteer or standing in his racer. Hence there arose - albeit for culprits who deserved the ultimate exemplary treatment - a feeling of pity, as though it were not in the public interest, but for one man s savagery, that they were being eliminated.
Church and Brodribb 1895: Annals of Tacitus Book XV Section 44 (15.44): Nero blamed "a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace" for the fire; "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus"
Church and Brodribb 1895: Annals of Tacitus Book XV Section 44 (15.44): Nero blamed "a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace" for the fire; "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus": https://www.worldcat.org/title/648565961 https://u1lib.org/book/11950005/11d4d7 https://archive.org/details/church-and-brodribb-annals-1895-en/page/303/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1008515376478437426/annalsChurch1888.pdf
44. Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.
Original Specific Text of Tacitus: Chapter 44
Fisher 1906: Annals of Tacitus Book XV Section 44 (15.44): relevant text in Latin
Fisher 1906: Annals of Tacitus Book XV Section 44 (15.44): relevant text in Latin: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0077%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D44 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi1351.phi005.perseus-lat1:15.44 https://archive.ph/hwWZ
ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque.
Therefore, suppressing the rumour, Nero subjected the guilty and inflicted the most severe punishments on those whom the common people called Christians, who had been hated for their atrocities. The author of his name, Christ Tiberius, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate. And the deadly superstition, suppressed for the time being, broke out again, not only through Judea, the origin of its evil, but also through the city, where everything atrocious or shameful from every quarter converges and is celebrated.
Medicean manuscript M2 Page 38, which contains Book XV Section 44: original pictures
Medicean manuscript M2 Page 38, which contains Book XV Section 44: "christian/chrestian" and "christus/chrestus" highlighted
Original Full Text of Tacitus: Medicean Manuscript M1 and M2
Pearse 2000: summary of the history of the manuscript M2 (which contains Book XV) and how it ended up at Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana
Pearse 2000: summary of the history of the manuscript M2 (which contains Book XV) and how it ended up at Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana: https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/tacitus/ https://archive.ph/KZVJ http://web.archive.org/web/20220906211127/https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/tacitus/
This MS is written in the difficult Beneventan hand. It was written at Monte Cassino, perhaps during the abbacy of Richer (1038-55AD). It derives from an ancestor written in Rustic Capitals, as it contains errors of transcription natural to that bookhand. There is some evidence that it was copied only once in about ten centuries, and that this copy was made from an original in rustic capitals of the 5th century or earlier,8 but other scholars believe that it was copied via at least one intermediate copy written in a minuscule hand.9 How the MS came to leave Monte Cassino is a matter of mystery. It was still at Monte Cassino, and was used by Paulus Venetus, Bishop of Puzzuoli, sometime between 1331 and 1344. However Boccaccio had certainly seen the text by 1371, and the MS is listed among the books given by him at his death to the monastery of S. Spirito in Florence. Whether he had 'liberated' it, or acquired it from another collector who had done so has been extensively debated, without final result. The MS is next seen in 1427, in the hands of the book-collector Niccolo Niccoli, who had furnished bookcases for Boccaccio's collection at S.Spirito. That Niccolo had not acquired the MS legitimately is suggested by a letter to him from his friend Poggio Bracciolini, asking to see it and promising to keep quiet about it. Knowledge of the text among the humanists is correspondingly limited in this period. Poggio returned the MS to Niccolo, complaining about its barbarous script, and comparing it unfavourably with a copy of it in humanist script held by another mutual friend, Salutati. At Niccolo's death in 1437, the MS passed with his books to the monastery of San Marco at Florence with the Medici as executors, and the humanist copies all date from this period or later. The editio princeps was from the press of 'Spira' at Venice, a folio volume containing only the last 6 books of the annals and the first five of the histories. It is undated, but supposed to be from either 1468 or 1470. (Dibdin, Thomas Frognall, An introduction to the knowledge of rare and valuable editions of the Greek and Latin classics, 4th edn., London (1827), vol II. p.466 checked).
Medicean manuscript M1 (location: Plut.68.01): details and images
Medicean manuscript M2 (location: Plut.68.02): details and images
Background on Josephus
Josephus Is the First Non-Christian Source to Mention Jesus
Ehrman 1999: the Jamesian reference suggests that Jesus had a brother named James, which aligns with claims made in the Gospels
Ehrman 1999: the Jamesian reference suggests that Jesus had a brother named James, which aligns with claims made in the Gospels: https://www.worldcat.org/title/39985521 https://u1lib.org/book/1211836/792386 https://archive.org/details/jesusapocalyptic0000ehrm_l7z0/page/56/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017531463253643315/ehrman1999.pdf
In contrast to pagan sources, we have very few Jewish texts of any kind that can be reliably dated to the first century of the Common Era. And here again, even among the ones that do survive for example, the Dead Sea Scrolls, about which I'll say some words later, and the extensive writings of Philo, the great Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, Egypt (20 BCE-50 CE) Jesus is never mentioned. With one important exception. This is the Jewish historian Josephus (37 100 CE), probably our most important source for understanding Jewish life and history during the first century. In the many volumes of writings that have come down to us from his pen, Josephus does not say much about Jesus. But he does mention him briefly on two occasions, and we will do well to consider what he says. First some background.
Josephus Passage 1: Jamesian Reference
Ehrman 1999: the Jamesian reference suggests that Jesus had a brother named James, which aligns with claims made in the Gospels
Ehrman 1999: the Jamesian reference suggests that Jesus had a brother named James, which aligns with claims made in the Gospels: https://www.worldcat.org/title/39985521 https://u1lib.org/book/1211836/792386 https://archive.org/details/jesusapocalyptic0000ehrm_l7z0/page/56/mode/2up https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1017531463253643315/ehrman1999.pdf
I'll take the references in reverse order, since the second is of less historical interest. It occurs in a story about the Jewish high priest Ananus, who abused his power in the year 62 CE by unlawfully putting to death a man named James, whom Josephus identifies as "the brother of Jesus who is called the messiah" (Ant. 20.9,1). From this reference we can learn that there was indeed a man named Jesus (Josephus actually discusses lots of different people with that name many of them at far greater length than the Jesus we are concerned about), that he had a brother named James (which we already knew from the New Testament; see Mark 6:3 and Gal. 1:19), and that he was thought by some people to be the Jewish messiah. The information is not much, but at least it's something. I should point out that Josephus himself does not happen to agree with those who called Jesus the messiah. We don't know how much he knew about the Christians, but it is clear that he remained a non-Christian Jew until his dying day.
Thallus: Alleged Pagan Writer Who Verified Darkness After Christ's Crucifixion
Carrier 1999
Kirby 2022: the [Acts of Pilate / Acta Pilat] were fabricated by the Roman empire
Kirby 2022: the [Acts of Pilate / Acta Pilat] were fabricated by the Roman empire: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/actspilate.html https://archive.ph/6n5Rg
When the influence of Christianity was increasing rapidly in the Empire, one of the last pagan emperors, Maximin II, two years before the Edict of Milan, attempted to bring Christianity into disrepute by publishing what he alleged to be the true 'Acts of Pilate', representing the origins of Christianity in an unsavoury guise. These 'Acts', which were full of outrageous assertions about Jesus, had to be read and memorized by schoolchildren. They were manifestly forged, as Eusebius historian pointed out at the time;' among other things, their dating was quite wrong, as they placed the death of Jesus in the seventh year of Tiberius (AD 20), whereas the testimony of Josephus' is plain that Pilate not become procurator of Judaea till Tiberius' Twelfth year (not to mention the evidence of Luke iii. 1, according to which John the Baptist began to preach in fifteenth year of Tiberius). We do not know in detail these alleged 'Acts' contained, as they were naturally suppressed on Constantine's accession to power; but we may surmise that they had some affinity with Toledoth Yeshu, an anti-Christian compilation popular in some Jewish circles in mediaeval time.'
Kirby 2022: the 2nd Acts of Pilate ([Gospel of Nicodemus / Evangelium Nicodemi]) were fabricated by Christians
Kirby 2022: the 2nd Acts of Pilate ([Gospel of Nicodemus / Evangelium Nicodemi]) were fabricated by Christians: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/actspilate.html https://archive.ph/6n5Rg
Later in the fourth century another forged set of 'Acts of Pilate' appeared, this time from the Christian side, and as devoid of genuineness as Maximin's, to which they were perhaps intended as a counterblast. They are still extant, and consist of alleged memorials the trial, passion, and resurrection of Christ, recorded by Nicodemus and deposited with Pilate. (They are also own as the 'Gospel of Nicodemus'.) A translation of them is given in M. R. James' Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 94 ff., and they have a literary interest of their own, which does not concern us here.
Carrier 2022: why didn't the Romans refute? they weren't interested!
Carrier 2022: why didn't the Romans refute? they weren't interested! https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16798
There s no evidence any Romans ever investigated these claims. No investigation is mentioned anywhere, not even in the fake Acts of Pilate, nor even in the Acts of the Apostles, despite that describing court hearings before several Roman officials. In every such instance, the Romans are totally uninterested in investigating anything the Christians were claiming. Junius Gallio, uninterested; Claudius Lysias, uninterested; Antonius Felix, never once even asks about it; Porcius Festus, just laughs it off, outright saying he has no idea how to investigate such a claim, and consequently, never does; instead, he simply dismisses Paul as a lunatic. Sheffield s own Bible reports on no other hearings before Roman authorities. We see the same response from Pliny, governor of Bithynia, eighty years later: after merely asking a couple of local believers a few questions, he dismisses the whole thing as superstitious nonsense. He conducts no investigation.
General Criticisms
exMuslim
exMuslim
exMuslim
Muslim
pray three times a day
Al-Razi Quote
Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi [864/865 - 925/935]: [Mahariq al anbiya, "The Prophets' Fraudulent Tricks"]: banger quote on the "literary miracle" of the Qur'an
Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi [864/865 - 925/935]: [Mahariq al anbiya, "The Prophets' Fraudulent Tricks"]: banger quote on the "literary miracle" of the Qur'an: https://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?topic=18628.0 "You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: "Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one." Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. ... By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: "Produce something like it"?"
Specific Criticisms
Muslim apologists often cite Quran 21:30 as proof that the Qur'an predicted the science of the Big Bang; instead, we see that the exact meaning of Qur'an 21:30 does not map neatly onto the expansion of space-time by immense energy, but instead is described as "parting", "separating", "sewn up", "unstitched", etc.
Muslim apologists often cite Quran 21:30 as proof that the Qur'an predicted the science of the Big Bang; instead, we see that the exact meaning of Qur'an 21:30 does not map neatly onto the expansion of space-time by immense energy, but instead is described as "parting", "separating", "sewn up", "unstitched", etc.: https://quranx.com/tafsirs/21.30
Articles Defending [See if Anything Useful]
Ahmad 2016: todo reread xxx
Qazanfari Omidi Heydarbeygi 2021: todo reread xxx
Todo
WikiIslam: scientific errors
WikiIslam: scientific miracles
RationalWiki: scientific errors
RationalWiki: scientifci miracles
Rising Secularism in the Middle East
Middle East residents are becoming substantially less religious over time
Middle East residents are becoming substantially less religious over time: https://www.arabbarometer.org/survey-data/data-analysis-tool/
Internet use makes Muslims more pro-Western
Reasons Why Women Wear Hijabs: Most Mention Religion, Few Mention Compulsion
IPSU 2018: 46% of Muslim women say they wear a religious symbol; the reasons given for wearing this symbol are religious obligation (54%), external faith identification (21%), modesty (12%), family requirement (1%)
IPSU 2018: 46% of Muslim women say they wear a religious symbol; the reasons given for wearing this symbol are religious obligation (54%), external faith identification (21%), modesty (12%), family requirement (1%): https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2018-full-report/ https://www.ispu.org/download/27890/?uid=e1dd0b9f63 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/700362916750163988/American-Muslim-Poll-2018.pdf
United States: Gay
ISPU 2017: in the United States, Muslim people are just as likely to be gay as people of other religions
ISPU 2017: in the United States, Muslim people are just as likely to be gay as people of other religions: https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2017/ https://www.ispu.org/download/27992/?uid=a68fc0ea0e
United States: Muslims Are Fairly Centrist and Move in Line With the Rest of the Population
Pew polls: American Muslisms support homosexuality as much as Republicans and more than black protestants or white evangelicals: Political 2017
Pew 2017: American Muslims are less likely than Americans in general to say that killing civilians is justifiable
Pew 2017: American Muslims are less likely than Americans in general to say that killing civilians is justifiable: http://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/findings-from-pew-research-centers-2017-survey-of-us-muslims/
Pew 2017: American Muslims and American Christians are about equally religious
Pew 2017: America Muslims are more concerned about Islamic extremism than Americans in general
Pew 2017: America Muslims are more concerned about Islamic extremism than Americans in general: http://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/findings-from-pew-research-centers-2017-survey-of-us-muslims/
IPSU 2018: Muslims are more likely to reject military targeting of civilians and to reject terrorism
Britain: Muslims Are Fairly Conservative and Are Slowly Liberalizing
British Muslims are becoming more liberal (but are still much more conservative than Britain overall)
British Muslims are becoming more liberal (but are still much more conservative than Britain overall): https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/review-survey-research-muslims-britain-0 https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/publication/documents/2018-03/a-review-of-survey-research-on-muslims-in-great-britain-ipsos-mori_0.pdf
A majority of Muslims disagree that homosexuality should be legal in Britain: 38% strongly disagree and 14% tend to disagree, whereas only 8% strongly agree and 10% tend to agree. (By way of comparison, 73% of the whole adult public (and 67% of Christians) said that it should be legal in the control group survey with a representative sample from the same poll. But although Muslims views are now out of line with the more liberal views of the British public as a whole, it should perhaps be borne in mind that as recently as 1993 the British Social Attitudes survey found 50% of the adult British public believing that sexual relations between two adults of the same sex were always wrong .) **Young Muslims are significantly more likely to agree that homosexuality should be legal (28% of 18-24 year olds, 23% of 25-34 year olds),** but even in these age groups there was a clear plurality against: as many 18-24 year olds strongly disagree as agree, strongly or otherwise, and among 25-34 year olds almost twice as many do so.
^ comparisons to other British by religion
Meta-Methodology Comparison of American Libs, Cons, and Liberts
psychological and moral profiles of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians
psychological and moral profiles of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042366
Extremism: Addiction to Community
people get "addicted" to the sense of community that white nationalism builds in them
people get "addicted" to the sense of community that white nationalism builds in them: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/08/15/addicted-to-hate-white-supremacy https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417728719 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0003122417728719 Disengagement from white supremacy is characterized by substantial lingering effects that subjects describe as addiction. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of identity residual for understanding how people leave and for theories of the self
Love et al 2019: among 3246 Swedish respondents, centrist and right-wing party members were significantly more likely to stigmatize depression and believe that you can "snap out" of depression
DeLuca et al 2018: among 518 American respondents, higher Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) significantly correlated with multiple types of higher stigma toward mentally ill people and with feelings of inadequacy if they had to seek psychological help
DeLuca et al 2018: among 518 American respondents, higher Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) significantly correlated with multiple types of higher stigma toward mentally ill people and with feelings of inadequacy if they had to seek psychological help: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764018776335 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0020764018776335 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/951579126551167016/deluca2018.pdf
Todo
Munsch Barnes Kline 2020: conservatives blame individuals for their poor mental health
Schlenker Chambers Le 2012: conservatives are happier; reasons examined
Todo: Also Has Religion and Mental Well-Being Studies
Black 2021 (reactionary source)
Black 2021 (reactionary source) https://archive.ph/wip/KaEmP
Lim and Putnam (2010) found that religious people are happier because of the social networks they build in church, not because of the divine. Thus, simply going to church doesn t matter, but having lots of friends at church does to the correlation between religiosity and happiness.
Lim and Putnam (2010) found that religious people are happier because of the social networks they build in church, not because of the divine. Thus, simply going to church doesn t matter, but having lots of friends at church does to the correlation between religiosity and happiness. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122410386686
Summary
review of the literature about trigger warnings
Evidence for No Effect
among 451 trauma survivors, trigger warnings did not reduce (self-reported) vulnerability or anxiety (even for people who thought that words can harm or for people with PTSD)
among 451 trauma survivors, trigger warnings did not reduce (self-reported) vulnerability or anxiety (even for people who thought that words can harm or for people with PTSD): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167702620921341 https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/2167702620921341
trigger warnings insignificantly decreased negative affect
trigger warnings insignificantly decreased negative affect: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167702619827018 http://sci-hub.se/10.1177/2167702619827018 As Table 3 shows, in the rows labeled Content, we instead found the effects of trigger warnings were once again trivially small. In standardized terms, the effects for this subset were: rating of material: dUnbiased = 0.00, 95% CI = [ 0.40, 0.40]; negative affect: dUnbiased = 0.26, 95% CI = [ 0.57, 0.05]; intrusion tally: dUnbiased = 0.02, 95% CI = [ 0.61, 0.57]; IES intrusions: dUnbiased = 0.10, 95% CI = [ 0.54, 0.34]; comprehension: dUnbiased = 0.17, 95% CI = [ 0.74, 0.39]; avoidance: dUnbiased = 0.04, 95% CI = [ 0.68, 0.76]).
Evidence for Negative Effect
among those without experience of PTSD, trigger warnings significantly increase anxiety among those who believe that words can harm people
among those without experience of PTSD, trigger warnings significantly increase anxiety among those who believe that words can harm people: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005791618301137 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jbtep.2018.07.002 Participants were recruited on Amazon s Mechanical Turk[.] [....] A single-item screening question excluded individuals who had experienced a canonical stressor (e.g., rape, natural disaster) qualifying for Criterion A of the PTSD diagnosis in DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Three hundred participants completed the study. Four participants were excluded from all analyses because they reported having received a diagnosis of PTSD despite denying exposure to canonical traumatic stressors. [....] A simple slopes analysis indicated that for participants who do not have a strong belief that words can cause harm (MWCHS 1 SD), receiving a trigger warning does not significantly increase anxiety from baseline (B = -4.57, t(265) = -1.73, ns). However, if participants have a strong belief that words can harm (MWCHS + 1 SD), trigger warnings significantly increase anxiety from baseline (B = 5.90, t(265) = 2.20, p < .05).
among those who believe trigger warnings are protecting against anxiety, trigger warnings significantly increase negative affect
among those who believe trigger warnings are protecting against anxiety, trigger warnings significantly increase negative affect : https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/are-trigger-warnings-actually-helpful/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210311830060X http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.08.006 We recruited 120 individuals from across the United States through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk), but an additional 28 additional participants signed up despite not finishing the survey. Of these 148 individuals, 4 were excluded on account of English being their second language and 64 participants dropped out of the survey after informed consent but prior to answering any questions, resulting in a final sample of 80 participants. [....] There was, however, a significant warning beliefs interaction (F(2, 702) = 4.54, p = .01, partial 2 = 0.013) (See Fig. 5). Simple effects reveal that those who believed trigger warnings to be coddling (one standard deviation below the mean) experienced more negative affect in the control condition compared to both the Trigger Warning Only condition (Mdifference= 4.69, 95% CI [1.74 7.65], p = .002, d = 0.30) and the Trigger Warning with Content condition (Mdifference= 4.15, 95% CI [1.45, 6.85], p = .003, d = 0.28).
Prescott Sargent Hull 2018: metastudy: across 24 longitudinal studies, video game violence was significantly correlated (r=8%, r^2=.6%) with increased physical aggression, controlling for prior aggression and race
Prescott Sargent Hull 2018: metastudy: across 24 longitudinal studies, video game violence was significantly correlated (r=8%, r^2=.6%) with increased physical aggression, controlling for prior aggression and race: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/yes-violent-video-games-trigger-aggression-but-debate-lingers/ https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9882.short https://sci-hub.se/10.1073/pnas.1611617114
VGV was related to aggression using both fixed [ = 0.113, 95% CI = (0.098, 0.128)] and random effects models [ = 0.106 (0.078, 0.134)]. When all available covariates were included, the size of the effect remained significant for both models [ = 0.080 (0.065, 0.094) and = 0.078 (0.053, 0.102), respectively].
[O]ur metaanalysis yielded a modest effect size of 0.11 when additional covariates were not included. Ferguson and his colleagues have noted that a regression coefficient of 0.10 is associated with only 1% of the variance in the outcome and concluded that this is so small as to be meaningless. However, others countered that squared regression coefficients provide a less appropriate metric for judging the practical significance of effects compared with estimates of relative risk.
meta-metastudy: the American Psychological Association's literature review concludes that violent video game use correlates with physical aggression
meta-metastudy: the American Psychological Association's literature review concludes that violent video game use correlates with physical aggression: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/08/violent-video-games https://www.apa.org/pi/families/review-video-games.pdf
Mental Health Outcomes
among 7th-11th graders in Montreal, increased social media use correlated with increased depression (across people: +2.28% per ~hour / across time: +1.46% per ~hour) and decreased self-esteem (-21.2%/-8.3%), video games with insigificantly changed depression (NS/NS) and decreased self-esteem (-7.9%/-9.4%), computer with increased depression (2.46%/NS) and decreased self-esteem (-12.2%/NS), and television with increased depression (NS/.64%) and mixed self-esteem (6.0%/-24.5%)
among 7th-11th graders in Montreal, increased social media use correlated with increased depression (across people: +2.28% per ~hour / across time: +1.46% per ~hour) and decreased self-esteem (-21.2%/-8.3%), video games with insigificantly changed depression (NS/NS) and decreased self-esteem (-7.9%/-9.4%), computer with increased depression (2.46%/NS) and decreased self-esteem (-12.2%/NS), and television with increased depression (NS/.64%) and mixed self-esteem (6.0%/-24.5%): https://www.psypost.org/2019/12/social-media-and-television-use-but-not-video-games-predict-depression-and-anxiety-in-teens-55045 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2737909 https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.1759 n=3826
Productivity
workers are more productive when allowed to access the Internet freely
workers are more productive when allowed to access the Internet freely: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-005X.2011.00272.x [unformatted, unread]
Happiness
lower IQ people report lower happiness, even after controlling for economic and social factors
Overexciteability
mensa members (higher intelligence) were much more likely to have a variety of "overexciteable" disorders, such as social anxiety
mensa members (higher intelligence) were much more likely to have a variety of "overexciteable" disorders, such as social anxiety: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616303324 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.intell.2017.09.001
workers in creative, scientific, and artistic occupations are more likely to have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression, or to be a sibling of someone who does
Orchid Thesis
students with bipolar are both more likely to do very poorly and to do very well in high school (supports the "Orchid-Dandelion" thesis)
How Terms Affect Learning
Anggoro et al 2008: compared to children in Jakarta (Indonesian), children in Chicago (English) were more likely to misidentify "alive" as an trait of "animal" instead of "living things"; this suggets confusion of "animal (excludes humans)" with "alive", as this term does not exist in Indonesian
Anggoro et al 2008: compared to children in Jakarta (Indonesian), children in Chicago (English) were more likely to misidentify "alive" as an trait of "animal" instead of "living things"; this suggets confusion of "animal (excludes humans)" with "alive", as this term does not exist in Indonesian: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02086.x https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02086.x https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/953907377323773972/anggoro2008.pdf
Recruitment: Supply-Side
military recruitment head notes student debt key to beating recruitment goals
student debt advertisement
military recruiters disproportionately target poor and nonwhite schools
Recruitment: Demand-Side
the most common reasons recruits cite for joining the army is desire for adventure, Army job benefits, desire to serve the nation, Army job stability & pay, to leave negative environments, Army job training, and family history
the most common reasons recruits cite for joining the army is desire for adventure, Army job benefits, desire to serve the nation, Army job stability & pay, to leave negative environments, Army job training, and family history: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2252.html https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2200/RR2252/RAND_RR2252.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/703960932581245028/RAND_RR2252.pdf n=81
the most common reasons 16-21 year-olds cite for considering joining the US military are to pay for future education (49%), travel (45%), pay (44%), to help others (41%), to gain experience or work skills (38%), health benefits (32%), adventure (30%), duty to country (28%), pride or honor (27%), and to help with future job opportunities (27%)
the most common reasons 16-21 year-olds cite for considering joining the US military are to pay for future education (49%), travel (45%), pay (44%), to help others (41%), to gain experience or work skills (38%), health benefits (32%), adventure (30%), duty to country (28%), pride or honor (27%), and to help with future job opportunities (27%): https://jamrs.defense.gov/Market-Research-Studies/Reports/ https://jamrs.defense.gov/Portals/20/Futures-Survey-Spring-2017.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/708794785917435954/futures_17.pdf
Representation: Income
Yung Neocon
2006-7: military recruits mostly come from neighborhoods near median household income
2006-7: relative to the US population, the military is disproportionately middle-income
2018: relative to the US population, the military is disproportionately middle-income
1979-2008: relative to the US population, the military in the 80's was disproportionately poor and undereducated, but the military in the 00's was disproportionately rich and well-educated
1979-2008: relative to the US population, the military in the 80's was disproportionately poor and undereducated, but the military in the 00's was disproportionately rich and well-educated: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2019.1692660 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/01402390.2019.1692660
Representation: Race
1980-2000: relative to the US population, whites are 1.05x more likely to be in the military, black people 1.26x, Hispanic .47x, Asian .80x, and American Indian 1.25x
1980-2000: relative to the US population, whites are 1.05x more likely to be in the military, black people 1.26x, Hispanic .47x, Asian .80x, and American Indian 1.25x: https://surface.syr.edu/soc/3/
2006-7: relative to the US population, whites are 1.06x more likely to be military recruits, black people 1.06x, Hispanic .66x, Asian .94x, and American Indian 2.82x
2017: relative to the US population, active duty military are about equally likely to be white, black, and Hispanic people; Asian people are underrepresented, other is overrepresented
Representation: Requirements
military standards: high school education, no major medical conditions, no drug use, no criminal record
military standards: high school education, no major medical conditions, no drug use, no criminal record: https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/15/news/economy/military-recruiting/index.html
Characteristics: Education
2006-7: relative to the US population, military recruits are 15x less likely to not have a highschool equivalent education
2018: relative to the US population, military recruits are disproportionately high-scoring on the Armed Forces Qualification Test
Fatalities: Perspective
only .5% of the population has served active duty
Fatalities: Income
poorer communities are more likely to have higher fatalities in modern wars
Fatalities: Race
among military deaths, higher casualty rates correlate with lower community income correlates, lower black population, lower age, lower Republican vote share, and being in the South
military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are disproportionately white
Effects: Income
relative to comparable non-veterans, military service correlates with an 8% higher wage (16 years later)
relative to comparable non-veterans, military service for 2 years correlates with -5% higher wage (16 years later), 4 years with +5%, 8 years with +10%, 12 years with +10%, and those still-serving with +45%
relative to comparable non-veterans, military service for 2 years correlates with -5% higher wage (16 years later), 4 years with +5%, 8 years with +10%, 12 years with +10%, and those still-serving with +45%: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR342.html https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/706228874157228162/RAND_RR342.pdf
these trends held for all four categories of MOS
these trends held in the 1994 and 1997 cohorts; the RAND study was published too soon to evaluate the 2003 cohort
Effects: Education
relative to comparable non-veterans, military service correlates with -5% higher college degree attainment after 6 years and with +1% higher attainment after 18 years
relative to comparable non-veterans, military service correlates with -5% higher college degree attainment after 6 years and with +1% higher attainment after 18 years: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR342.html https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/706228874157228162/RAND_RR342.pdf
these trends mostly hold for all year of service lengths
these trends mostly hold for all four categories of MOS
Effects: Gaps
the home-ownership gap between veteran and nonmilitary residents disproportionately benefits nonwhite people
the home-ownership gap between active duty and nonmilitary residents disproportionately benefits nonwhite people
the income gap between veteran and nonmilitary residents disproportionately benefits nonwhite people
the income gap between active duty and nonmilitary residents disproportionately benefits nonwhite people
Animal Abilities
unformatted: many animals have the ability to count
empathy
Persuasion and Changing Behavior
Matur 2021: evidence strongly suggests that informing people about poor animal welfare in factory farms correlates with reduced meat consumption
Matur 2021: evidence strongly suggests that informing people about poor animal welfare in factory farms correlates with reduced meat consumption: https://plantbasednews.org/culture/ethics/raising-awareness-factory-farm-conditions-slash-meat-consumption/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666321001847?via%3Dihub https://sci-hub.se/http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666321001847 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/855203458528968714/matur2021.pdf
We meta-analyzed 100 studies assessing interventions designed to reduce meat consumption or purchase by mentioning or portraying farm animals, that measured behavioral or self-reported outcomes related to meat consumption, purchase, or related intentions, and that had a control condition. The interventions consistently reduced meat consumption, purchase, or related intentions at least in the short term with meaningfully large effects (metaanalytic mean risk ratio [RR] = 1.22; 95% CI: [1.13, 1.33]).
Nutrition
scientific consensus
scientific consensus: https://jandonline.org/article/S0002-8223(09)00700-7/fulltext https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jada.2009.05.027 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/890355508354101248/ada2009.pdf
It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
nutrient intake by diet in Switzerland
nutrient intake by diet in Switzerland: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00394-015-1079-7 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s00394-015-1079-7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/741670047168331786/schupbach2015.pdf OV = omnivore, VG = vegetarian, VN = vegan; Ca = Calcium, Mg = Magnesium, P = Phosphorous, Fe = Iron, Zn = Zinc, K = Potassium, Na = Sodium, Cl = Chlorine [vietocr + graph this]
We recruited 53 ovo-lacto vegetarians, 53 vegans and 100 omnivores. OV and VG subjects taking antibiotics or vitamin/mineral supplements, as well as pregnant and lactating women, were excluded from the study. Vitamin/mineral supplementation is very common among VNs. As it was impossible to recruit the required number of vegan subjects otherwise, the criteria regarding supplementation were relaxed for this group.
Medical Expenses
among matched cohorts (by age and sex) in Taiwan, vegetarians had substantially lower medical expenditures
among matched cohorts (by age and sex) in Taiwan, vegetarians had substantially lower medical expenditures: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/11/2688 https://sci-hub.se/10.3390/nu11112688
the health and environmental benefits of a global shift to plant-based diets would be about $1-$31 trillion per year
the health and environmental benefits of a global shift to plant-based diets would be about $1-$31 trillion per year: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/15/4146 https://sci-hub.se/10.1073/pnas.1523119113 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/741676415224905819/springmann2016.pdf
Transitioning toward more plant-based diets that are in line with standard dietary guidelines could reduce global mortality by 6 10% and food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 29 70% compared with a reference scenario in 2050. We find that the monetized value of the improvements in health would be comparable with, or exceed, the value of the environmental benefits although the exact valuation method used considerably affects the estimated amounts. Overall, we estimate the economic benefits of improving diets to be 1 31 trillion US dollars, which is equivalent to 0.4 13% of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2050. However, significant changes in the global food system would be necessary for regional diets to match the dietary patterns studied here.
Environmental Efficiency: Individual Foods
Poore 2018: "a vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases"
Poore and Nemecek 2018: meta-study evidence suggests that beef requires 167x more GHG emissions per 100g of carbon than nuts, protein sources compared
Poore and Nemecek 2018: meta-study evidence suggests that beef requires 167x more GHG emissions per 100g of carbon than nuts, protein sources compared: http://environmath.org/2018/06/17/paper-of-the-day-poore-nemecek-2018-reducing-foods-environmental-impacts/
Poore and Nemecek 2018: meta-study evidence suggests that all plant products require lower GHG emissions per 100g of protein than any animal product, including eggs
Environmental Efficiency: Whole Diets
Aleksandrowicz et al 2016: vegan-vegetarian-pescetarian diets are associated with significantly reduced GHG emissions and land use, but insignificantly changed water use
Environmental Efficiency: Clothing
Global Fashion Agenda 2017: cradle to grave environmental costs per kilogram of material: cow leather < silk < cotton < bast fiber < wool < synthetic leather < nylon < modal < rayon < acrylic < spandex < lyocell < polyester < polypropylene
Global Fashion Agenda 2017: cradle to grave environmental costs per kilogram of material: cow leather < silk < cotton < bast fiber < wool < synthetic leather < nylon < modal < rayon < acrylic < spandex < lyocell < polyester < polypropylene: https://www.globalfashionagenda.com/publications-and-policy/pulse-of-the-industry/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/860334337021968384/pulse2017.pdf
Global Fashion Agenda 2017: cradle to grave environmental costs per kilogram of material, with rankings by subcategory: polyproplyene & polyester are the most ecologically efficient materials in every category except resource depletion
Global Fashion Agenda 2017: cradle to grave environmental costs per kilogram of material, with rankings by subcategory: polyproplyene & polyester are the most ecologically efficient materials in every category except resource depletion: https://www.globalfashionagenda.com/publications-and-policy/pulse-of-the-industry/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/860334337021968384/pulse2017.pdf
Agricultural Efficiency Is Low
Lusk and Bailey 2009: agricultural efficiency: in the USA between 2004-05, crops produced 5-19x more calories per dollar and 3.3x-26.8x more protein per dollar than animal products (including only farm costs)
Lusk and Bailey 2009: agricultural efficiency: in the USA between 2004-05, crops produced 5-19x more calories per dollar and 3.3x-26.8x more protein per dollar than animal products (including only farm costs): https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/55529 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/741650263210983434/lusk2009.pdf
Lusk and Bailey 2009: retail efficiency: in the USA between 2004-05, crops produced 1.2x-5.6x more calories per dollar and 0.5x-4.57x more protein per dollar than animal products (including retail costs, such as transportation and preparation)
Lusk and Bailey 2009: retail efficiency: in the USA between 2004-05, crops produced 1.2x-5.6x more calories per dollar and 0.5x-4.57x more protein per dollar than animal products (including retail costs, such as transportation and preparation): https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/55529 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/741650263210983434/lusk2009.pdf
Lusk and Bailey 2009: shifts towards vegetarianism-veganism would reduce crop prices *and* meat prices
Lusk and Bailey 2009: shifts towards vegetarianism-veganism would reduce crop prices *and* meat prices: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/55529 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/741650263210983434/lusk2009.pdf
Of course, a shift towards vegetarianism by one [percentage point] of the population would reduce corn prices and hence meat prices for the remaining meat-eaters, as lower corn prices reduced the cost of feeding animals. Assuming SB = -0.02373, SP = -0.02068, and SCK = -0.02422, corn prices fall 1.72 percent, beef prices fall 1.81 percent, pork prices fall 1.43 percent, and poultry prices fall 2.29 percent. Large-scale shifts towards vegetarianism not only make vegetarian diets cheaper due to lower corn prices, but make non-vegetarian diets cheaper as well. Given these percent changes in prices, movements towards vegetarianism may actually make meat consumption increasingly affordable relative to vegetarianism.
Societal Efficiency Is Low
Simon 2013: when one includes costs of subsidies, environmental harms, animal welfare harms, and health harms, the animal food system imposes about $1.65 in hidden costs per $1 in sales
Simon 2013: when one includes costs of subsidies, environmental harms, animal welfare harms, and health harms, the animal food system imposes about $1.65 in hidden costs per $1 in sales: https://u1lib.org/book/2224153/913320 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/889524253874085918/simon2013.pdf
"Meatonomics" is the first book to add up the huge "externalized" costs that the animal food system imposes on taxpayers, animals and the environment, and it finds these costs total about $414 billion yearly. With yearly retail sales of around $250 billion, that means that for every $1 of product they sell, meat and dairy producers impose almost $2 in hidden costs on the rest of us. But if producers were forced to internalize these costs, a $4 Big Mac would cost about $11.
^ subsidies: """One study estimates that 63 percent of US subsidies benefit animal food producers. 18 Applying this percentage to the $57.3 billion farm subsidy total, and adding $2.3 billion for fish subsidies (see chapter 9), the total of annual subsidies to US producers of animal foods is an estimated $38.4 billion. 19"""
^ subsidies:
One study estimates that 63 percent of US subsidies benefit animal food producers. 18 Applying this percentage to the $57.3 billion farm subsidy total, and adding $2.3 billion for fish subsidies (see chapter 9), the total of annual subsidies to US producers of animal foods is an estimated $38.4 billion. 19
Price Elasticity of Animal Products [Todo]
A hefty pile of studies (419 at last count) measures the price elasticity of demand for animal foods that is, the relationship between prices and consumption. In 2010, a meta-study determined that a 1 percent change in the price of beef causes American consumption to change by about 0.75 percent. 33 In other words, notwithstanding all the other reasons why people buy beef including marketing, taste, and nutritional beliefs a 10 percent price change will shift consumption by about 7.5 percent. The study found that dairy has demand elasticity of 0.65, meaning that a 10 percent price change in dairy products causes consumption to change by about 6.5 percent. 34
A hefty pile of studies (419 at last count) measures the price elasticity of demand for animal foods that is, the relationship between prices and consumption. In 2010, a meta-study determined that a 1 percent change in the price of beef causes American consumption to change by about 0.75 percent. 33 In other words, notwithstanding all the other reasons why people buy beef including marketing, taste, and nutritional beliefs a 10 percent price change will shift consumption by about 7.5 percent. The study found that dairy has demand elasticity of 0.65, meaning that a 10 percent price change in dairy products causes consumption to change by about 6.5 percent. 34
Animal-Friendly Agriculture Is Insufficient
Fischer 2016: switching to animal-friendly agriculture would increase the cost of meat by roughly 4 times
Fischer 2016: switching to animal-friendly agriculture would increase the cost of meat by roughly 4 times: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/bts/vol19/iss1/8/ https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/889518569732325476/fischer2016.pdf
According to the US Department of Labor, the average American spends 12.6% of her income on food.5 Of that, roughly 4.2% is devoted to animal products. If the prices of those products were to go up by a factor of 3.75 and estimate that I take to be conservative she would have to spend 24.15% of her total budget to maintain the same level of animal product consumption, which is nearly double what she now spends.
If the average American eats three meals a day, and consumes some animal product or other at every meal, then she d go from eating animal products 21 times per week to eating them twice per week. While that would still be a far cry from strict veganism, it s pretty close relative to current patterns of consumption.
Expense: Good Descriptive Studies
Lusk et al 2016: controlling for demographics, "true" vegetarians (don't buy any meat) spend about $15/wk ($780/yr) less than omnivores; "partial" vegetarians (buy some meat) spend about $13/wk ($676/yr) more than omnivores
Lusk et al 2016: controlling for demographics, "true" vegetarians (don't buy any meat) spend about $15/wk ($780/yr) less than omnivores; "partial" vegetarians (buy some meat) spend about $13/wk ($676/yr) more than omnivores: http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2016/8/22/what-do-meat-eaters-and-vegetarians-spend-on-food https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800915301488 http://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.07.005 demographic controls: sex, race, income, education, region, marital status, weight, political views, number of kids, number of household members
Our data set consists of a total of 24,537 respondents who participated in FooDS over the two year period from May 2013 to May 2015. Of the total, 733 respondents (or about 3%) are partial vegetarians and 541 (or about 2.2%) are true vegetarians.
Expense: Supplements
supplements
supplements: https://www.moneyunder30.com/true-cost-of-going-vegan
I decided to research common prices for an array of differen supplements that are commonly prescribed to vegans. This is what I found: Vitamin B-12 $15.24 for 1,000 mcg soft gels, 150 count. Vitamin k-2 $21.99 for 600 mcg capsules, 90 count. Omega-3 fatty acids $11.31 for 1200 mg soft gels, 150 count. Zinc $4.45 for 50 mg caplets, 100 count. Calcium $10.49 for 1,200 mg soft gels, 120 count.
Expense: Bad Descriptive Studies
this only examined two hypothetical meals: a vegetarian diet (uses eggs, dairy, etc.) was substantially cheaper ($39/wk) than the cheapest low-meat option from MyPlate ($53/wk) and generally had better nutrient outcomes
this only examined two hypothetical meals: a vegetarian diet (uses eggs, dairy, etc.) was substantially cheaper ($39/wk) than the cheapest low-meat option from MyPlate ($53/wk) and generally had better nutrient outcomes: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19320248.2015.1045675 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/19320248.2015.1045675
All of the food products were priced during March 2012 using nonsale prices at Stop & Shop (a grocery chain in Rhode Island/southeastern New England). The nutrient content for each diet was determined using DietAnalysis+ 8.0 (Brooks Cole, 2007; Thompson Wadworth), a nutrient database that uses the USDA nutrient analysis and allows for entry of any food not available in the database.
Though increasing calcium intake is widely recommended in the United States for preventing and treating osteoporosis, international data do not support a relationship betwen calcium intake to bone mineral density.24
The preparation of plant-based meals that include extra virgin olive oil may be unfamiliar to Americans or they may be perceived as complicated. Higher labor costs for preparing the economical Thrifty Food Plan have been shown to be a deterrent to the use of the recipes by lower socioeconomic populations.17,29 However, 76% of the participants in the RTB protocol reported that the recipes were easier to prepare and took less time than the recipes they typically used, and 94% responded yes when asked whether they planned to continue using the RTB foods.12
Berners-Lee et al. (2012) estimated that vegans save 14% on their grocery store purchases relative to meat eaters, but that estimate is not based on individual data, but an amalgamation of several datasets and various assumptions about how UK eating habits mimic those of the US. The Berners-Lee study separated vegetarians for vegans, and found that, of the two, vegans spent more on money.
Berners-Lee et al. (2012) estimated that vegans save 14% on their grocery store purchases relative to meat eaters, but that estimate is not based on individual data, but an amalgamation of several datasets and various assumptions about how UK eating habits mimic those of the US. The Berners-Lee study separated vegetarians for vegans, and found that, of the two, vegans spent more on money.
Only one study (to our knowledge) has analyzed food expenditures at the individual level for those who are and are not vegetarians. Using a survey of 1600 Canadians, data were collected on vegetarian status (lacto-ovo vegetarians, to be specific) and self-reported monthly food expenditures. Results showed that, contrary to previous studies, vegetarians actually spent more money on food (Guillemette and Cranfield, 2012). [xxx todo reread]
Only one study (to our knowledge) has analyzed food expenditures at the individual level for those who are and are not vegetarians. Using a survey of 1600 Canadians, data were collected on vegetarian status (lacto-ovo vegetarians, to be specific) and self-reported monthly food expenditures. Results showed that, contrary to previous studies, vegetarians actually spent more money on food (Guillemette and Cranfield, 2012). [xxx todo reread]
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/03/the-economic-case-for-worldwide-vegetarianism/475524/ https://www.pnas.org/content/113/15/4146 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/15/4146
Transitioning toward more plant-based diets that are in line with standard dietary guidelines could reduce global mortality by 6 10% and food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 29 70% compared with a reference scenario in 2050. We find that the monetized value of the improvements in health would be comparable with, or exceed, the value of the environmental benefits although the exact valuation method used considerably affects the estimated amounts. Overall, we estimate the economic benefits of improving diets to be 1 31 trillion US dollars, which is equivalent to 0.4 13% of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2050. However, significant changes in the global food system would be necessary for regional diets to match the dietary patterns studied here.
Scope: Proportion and Expense
for 2001-2, the American Pet Products Association estimated that 63m American households (58% of 108m) owned a pet and spent $29-30 billion on their pets
for 2001-2, the American Pet Products Association estimated that 63m American households (58% of 108m) owned a pet and spent $29-30 billion on their pets: https://www.businessreport.com/business/historically-high-spending-pets-increasing-ownership-spurring-rapid-growth-products-services-furry-friends
different surveys conducted between 2007 and 2018 estimate that between 48% and 68% of Americans owned a pet
pet expenses make up .3 to .4% of personal income
Effects: Meat Consumption
in the USA, cats and dogs consume 203/(1051+203)=16.1% of food calories (1 in 6 food products go to pets) and 25% of meat calories (1 in 4 meat products go to pets)
in the USA, cats and dogs consume 203/(1051+203)=16.1% of food calories (1 in 6 food products go to pets) and 25% of meat calories (1 in 4 meat products go to pets): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181301 https://sci-hub.se/10.1371/journal.pone.0181301
Effects: Health Benefits
in China, whose cities recently allowed pet ownership, dog ownership among young-middle-aged women was associated with positive health outcomes
in China, whose cities recently allowed pet ownership, dog ownership among young-middle-aged women was associated with positive health outcomes: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-007-9142-2 https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s11205-007-9142-2
Effects: Health Benefits: Economic Benefits (Bad Studies)
this study assumes that more doctor visits leads to more healthcare expenditures -- it's not clear that this is true (eg, Japan has 12 visits/yr vs USA 4 visits/yr, Japan 2x cheaper than USA), so the economic impact assumptions appear invalid in Germany, if one assumes that national health expenditures (NHE) and doctor visits are 1:1, then a 1% decrease in pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by +0.262 billion EUR/yr (in 2000: 1.09 USD/EUR, 282m Americans/82m Germans => `.262*1.09*(282/82)` = +0.982 billion USD/yr); the elimination of pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by 5.59 billion EUR/yr (in 2000: `5.59*1.09*(282/82)` = +21.0 billion USD/yr)
in Germany, if one assumes that national health expenditures (NHE) and doctor visits are 1:1, then a 1% decrease in pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by +0.262 billion EUR/yr (in 2000: 1.09 USD/EUR, 282m Americans/82m Germans => `.262*1.09*(282/82)` = +0.982 billion USD/yr); the elimination of pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by 5.59 billion EUR/yr (in 2000: `5.59*1.09*(282/82)` = +21.0 billion USD/yr): https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=674270738133649;res=IELBUS https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/683330236359770121/pet_ownership.pdf
Simple multiplication shows that if the 21.3% of the population who always owned a pet in Germany went to the doctor 1.12 times a year more often, and the PetNow and Pet5ago groups also went as often as the PetNever group, then the total increase in doctor visits nation-wide would be 2.56%. Health expenditure (2000) was 218.4 billion Euros. So loss of all pets would bring in its train an increase in national health expenditure of 5.59 billion Euros (0.0256 x 218.4 billion Euros). Another way of viewing the issue is to say that every 1% fall in pet ownership in the PetAlways group results in extra health costs of about 262 million Euros per year. So the actual fall in ownership of 1.4% which occurred between 1996 and 2001 probably cost about 367 million Euros.6
in Australia, if one assumes that national health expenditures (NHE) and doctor visits are 1:1, then a 1% decrease in pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by `.495/7.3` = +0.0678 billion AUD/yr (in 2000: 1.34 USD/AUD, 282 Americans/19m Australians => `.0678*1.34*(282/19)` = +1.35 billion USD/yr); the elimination of pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by 3.86 billion (in 2000: `3.86*1.34*(282/19)` = +76.8 billion USD/yr)
in Australia, if one assumes that national health expenditures (NHE) and doctor visits are 1:1, then a 1% decrease in pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by `.495/7.3` = +0.0678 billion AUD/yr (in 2000: 1.34 USD/AUD, 282 Americans/19m Australians => `.0678*1.34*(282/19)` = +1.35 billion USD/yr); the elimination of pet ownership was estimated to increase NHE by 3.86 billion (in 2000: `3.86*1.34*(282/19)` = +76.8 billion USD/yr): https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=674270738133649;res=IELBUS https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/683330236359770121/pet_ownership.pdf
In Australia far more people own pets, so the imputed losses are proportionately larger. If the 56.9% of Australians who always owned a pet went to the doctor as often as non-owners (i.e. 0.57 times a year more than they do now), and if adjustments are also made for the PetNow and Pet5ago groups, then the national increase in doctor visits and in resulting health expenditure would be 7.19%. Given that national health expenditure in 1999-2000 was $53.7 billion, this would represent an expenditure increase of $3.86 billion. Or, to put it another way, the decline in pet ownership of 7.3% which the ISSS-A estimates to have occurred between 1996 and 2001 may have cost about $495 million in increased health expenditure. About $351 million (71%) of this would have been borne by governments and about $144 million (29%) would have been privately incurred health expenditure.
Effects: Psychological Benefits
animal-assisted activities significantly decreased depression (~.6 standard deviations) versus control groups
animal-assisted activities significantly decreased depression (~.6 standard deviations) versus control groups: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/175303707X207954 https://sci-hub.se/10.2752/175303707X207954
stated benefits of pets among Swedish respondents
Terminology
dhabihah or zabiha: halal slaughter
shechita: kosher slaughter; shochet: kosher slaughterer
shechita: kosher slaughter; shochet: kosher slaughterer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita
Legal Framework
Kaminski 2020: there is a large "ritual bubble" surrounding religious slaughter in the USA
Kaminski 2020: there is a large "ritual bubble" surrounding religious slaughter in the USA: https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/earjujo9&i=28 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/823947821274103818/kaminski2020.pdf
It was not until Congress passed the 1978 version of the bill that the HMSA provided for administrative and criminal sanctions for inhumane slaughter.62 The USDA was empowered and directed to develop specific regulations that would enforce the HMSA.63 However, the regulations did not include anything on ritual slaughter.64 The USDA said this was because under the HMSA, ritual slaughter was exempt, and that any regulations promulgated by them are inapplicable to ritual slaughter.65 This exception has created the ritual bubble, whereby the USDA inspectors charged with ensuring the HMSA protections and standards are enforced, are unable to do so because of the exception.66 The treatment of animals within the bubble is completely unregulated, which leaves animals open to terrible abuses, and the inspectors with little or no recourse.67
Painfulness
Barrasso 2020: among 240 slaughtered sheep, consciousness rates among religiously slaughtered sheep were 2.0x higher after 15s (47% vs 92%), 2.5x after 30s (22% vs 55%), and 4x after 90s (3% vs 13%)
Barrasso 2020: among 240 slaughtered sheep, consciousness rates among religiously slaughtered sheep were 2.0x higher after 15s (47% vs 92%), 2.5x after 30s (22% vs 55%), and 4x after 90s (3% vs 13%): https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/11/557/htm http://sci-hub.se/10.3390/agriculture10110557 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/823948942634516490/barrasso2020.pdf religious slaughter was halal but not kosher (not done by a shochet); religious slaughter involved no stunning; nonreligious slaughter involved a captive bolt gun
Briefly, RB was tested by observing the presence or absence of inhalation and exhalation movements by the animal. The CR was tested by lightly touching the cornea and, if present, the eyeball retracted slightly, and the eyelids closed.
Outcomes and Lifespan
Ashwell et al 2014: WHR and BMI by years of life lost
Bhaskaran et al 2018: BMI and lifespan by many causes of death
Soylent
soylent has been recalled 3 times between 2015 and 2019
2017 April 24: 890 boxes of Soylent powder 1.8 were recalled due to fears of contamination of undeclared milk
2017 April 24: 890 boxes of Soylent powder 1.8 were recalled due to fears of contamination of undeclared milk: http://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/20180126101733/https://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm554489.htm https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002056166-1-8-Powder-Status-Update
Our shipping records indicate that we have shipped 890 boxes (containing 7 x 15oz pouches) of this lot to 610 customers. We have started shipping newer lots to customers and do not anticipate an interruption in supply at this time.
2016: 2 weeks of Soylent food bars and Soylent powder 1.6 recalled over reports of
2015: Soylent recalled 80 bottles of Soylent drink 2.0 over reports of mold in the drinks
2015: Soylent recalled 80 bottles of Soylent drink 2.0 over reports of mold in the drinks: https://discourse.soylent.com/t/blog-post-shipping-delay-root-cause-analysis/23843
disability adjusted life years (DALYs) have been declining in the USA, suggesting most people are living healthier lives
disability adjusted life years (DALYs) have been declining in the USA, suggesting most people are living healthier lives: https://ourworldindata.org/burden-of-disease
immunizations between 1994 and 2013 prevented 732,000 deaths and saved $1.38 trillion
immunizations between 1994 and 2013 prevented 732,000 deaths and saved $1.38 trillion: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6316a4.htm
immunizaitons would substantially improve a pandemic scenario
immunizaitons would substantially improve a pandemic scenario: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4802686/
Effective Policies: Social Distancing
strong evidence for shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs; statistically significant in all models), weak evidence for restaurant and entertainment center closures (significant ignoring SIPOs, almost significant including SIPOs), no evidence for school closures and bans on large social gatherings
strong evidence for shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs; statistically significant in all models), weak evidence for restaurant and entertainment center closures (significant ignoring SIPOs, almost significant including SIPOs), no evidence for school closures and bans on large social gatherings: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00608 https://sci-hub.se/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00608
Adoption of government-imposed social distancing measures reduced the daily growth rate by 5.4 percentage points after 1 5 days, 6.8 after 6 10 days, 8.2 after 11 15 days, and 9.1 after 16 20 days. Holding the amount of voluntary social distancing constant, these results imply 10 times greater spread by April 27 without SIPOs (10 million cases) and more than 35 times greater spread without any of the four measures (35 million).
We focused on four government-imposed interventions: SIPOs, public school closures, bans on large social gatherings, and closures of entertainment-related businesses.
Effective Policies: Social Distancing, School Closure
a combination of school closure and social distancing (masks, handwashing, distance, etc.) substantially reduced infectivity of influenza in Hong Kong
a combination of school closure and social distancing (masks, handwashing, distance, etc.) substantially reduced infectivity of influenza in Hong Kong: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30090-6/fulltext
The estimated 44% reduction in influenza transmission in the general community in February, 2020, was much greater than the estimated 10 15% reduction in transmission associated with school closures alone during the 2009 pandemic,18 and the 16% reduction in transmission of influenza B associated with school closures during the 2017 18 winter in Hong Kong.19 We therefore estimate that the other social distancing measures and avoidance behaviours have had a substantial effect on influenza transmission in addition to the effect of school closures.
Effective Policies: Paid Sick Leave
cities that implemented mandatory paid sick leave saw reductions of 5% of influenza-like illness, according to the Google Flu proxy of influenza infections
Fatalities: Median Age at Death
COVID takes about 1 decade from its average victim
Long Covid: Living Systemic Review
Michelen 2022
Meta-Studies: Only Includes Moderate and High-Quality Evidence
Popp et al 2021: there is no evidence that Ivermectin improves any patient outcome, including mortality
Ivermectin: List of Retracted Articles: Rothrock 2021
Rothrock et al 2021: extensively discusses Kory 2021 and Bryant 2021, briefly discusses all other meta-studies; notes that most evidence is low and sample sizes are too low to draw the conclusions being made
Rothrock et al 2021: extensively discusses Kory 2021 and Bryant 2021, briefly discusses all other meta-studies; notes that most evidence is low and sample sizes are too low to draw the conclusions being made: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34994351/ https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Fulltext/2022/02000/Meta_Analyses_Do_Not_Establish_Improved_Mortality.11.aspx
Ultimately, imperfect studies need to be replaced by larger, adequately powered, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, with meta-analyses, ideally using IPD, based on these studies. Assuming an overall COVID-19 case fatality rate of 2%, a study with 4638 patients (2319 each arm) would be needed to have 80% power (alpha 0.05, 1:1 enrollment) to detect a 1% or 50% relative drop in mortality from any intervention (eg, ivermectin).60 Assuming a sicker population (7% mortality, Bryant meta-analysis), a study with 1274 patients (637 each study arm) would be needed to have 80% power to detect a 3.5% (50% relative) drop in mortality. We await results of such studies before concluding that treatment with ivermectin can decrease mortality in all or a subset of patients with COVID-19.
Ivermectin: Retracted Article: Hill 2021
Hill et al 2021: was forced to retract because of a large fraudulent study, which supported Ivermectin's efficacy
Hill et al 2022: after correction, Ivermectin had no significant effect on survival during COVID
Hill et al 2022: after correction, Ivermectin had no significant effect on survival during COVID: https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/9/2/ofab645/6509922 https://sci-hub.st/10.1093/ofid/ofab645
Ivermectin: Retracted Article: Kory 2021
Kory 2021: was forced to correct because of a large fraudulent study, which supported Ivermectin's efficacy
Ivermectin: Retracted Article: Bryant 2021
Bryant 2021: has not yet retracted or corrected despite including fraudulent studies
metaphysics external world: {non-skeptical realism, idealism, skepticism, ...}
metaphysics external world: {non-skeptical realism, idealism, skepticism, ...}
epistemology: {empiricism, rationalism, ...}
epistemology: {empiricism, rationalism, ...}
epistemology of science: {scientific realism, structure realism, entity realism, instrumentalism, constructive empiricism / structuralism, general skepticism, positivism, ...}
epistemology of science: {scientific realism, structure realism, entity realism, instrumentalism, constructive empiricism / structuralism, general skepticism, positivism, ...}
see the big names of today like Lewis, Armstrong, Kripke, van Inwagen
see the big names of today like Lewis, Armstrong, Kripke, van Inwagen
Summary of Questions
1: Existence: Does an external reality exist? --> ER existence question
1: Existence: Does an external reality exist? --> ER existence question
2: Mind-independence: Does the ER exist independent of our thoughts/perceptions of it? --> Realism part 1, mind-independent external reality quesiton
2: Mind-independence: Does the ER exist independent of our thoughts/perceptions of it? --> Realism part 1, mind-independent external reality quesiton
3: Knowability: Can we reliably obtain knowledge about the MIER? --> Realism part 2, see empiricism or scientific realism sections
3: Knowability: Can we reliably obtain knowledge about the MIER? --> Realism part 2, see empiricism or scientific realism sections
Summary of Viewpoints
Idealism: Hold that a mind-independent world exists, but that our senses, regardless of their reliability, don t perceive true reality
Idealism: Hold that a mind-independent world exists, but that our senses, regardless of their reliability, don t perceive true reality
Skepticism: Hold that our senses are not generally reliable about the external world
Skepticism: Hold that our senses are not generally reliable about the external world
Naive realism holds that our senses are universally/always reliable the external world
Naive realism holds that our senses are universally/always reliable the external world
Non-skeptical realism: Non-skeptical realism holds that our senses are usually/often reliable
Non-skeptical realism: Non-skeptical realism holds that our senses are usually/often reliable
Philpapers Survey Results: MIEW Exists
Existence: Idealism (4.3% target faculty, 1.9% epistemology AOS), Skepticism (4.8%, 9.4%), Non-skeptical realism (81.6%, 84.4%)
Existence: Idealism (4.3% target faculty, 1.9% epistemology AOS), Skepticism (4.8%, 9.4%), Non-skeptical realism (81.6%, 84.4%) https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl target faculty = faculty at 99 leading PhD-granting programs, AOS = area of study
Survey Results
Relevant Terms
Coherentism
Correspondence
Structuralism
Constructive empricism
Ramsey sentence
Confirmation theory
Park 2019
Park 2019: descriptive realism from NMA: current scientific theories perform better than chance, ergo scientific theories are true
Park 2019: descriptive realism from NMA: current scientific theories perform better than chance, ergo scientific theories are true: http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/filozofia/?q=en/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://sci-hub.se/10.31577/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/803705298233458688/park2019.pdf Descriptive realism would be true if T [a strong, current scientific theory] is as descriptive realism holds it to be, i.e., if T is true, and false if T is not as descriptive realism holds it to be, i.e., if T is false. T is directly rendered true or false by the world. Consequently, descriptive realism is indirectly rendered true or false by the world.
Park 2019: normative realism from NMA: current scientific theories perform better than chance, ergo scientific theories are warranted
Park 2019: normative realism from NMA: current scientific theories perform better than chance, ergo scientific theories are warranted: http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/filozofia/?q=en/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://sci-hub.se/10.31577/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/803705298233458688/park2019.pdf By contrast, normative realism, because it is a normative thesis, is not capable of being true or false. Even if T [a strong, current scientific theory] happens to be true, it is an open question whether it is warranted or not, as will become clear in the next section.
Park 2019: descriptive pessimism from NMA: past scientific theories were false, ergo present scientific theories are false
Park 2019: descriptive pessimism from NMA: past scientific theories were false, ergo present scientific theories are false: http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/filozofia/?q=en/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://sci-hub.se/10.31577/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/803705298233458688/park2019.pdf The descriptive PI holds that just as T1 [a past scientific theory] was false, so T2 [a current scientific theory] is false, where the former is a past theory and the latter is a present theory. This version of the PI can be inferred from Putnam s formulation of the PI that Just as no term used in the science of more than fifty (or whatever) years ago referred, so it will turn out that no term used now (except maybe observational terms, if there are such) refers (1978: 25). The descriptive PI can also be inferred from Stathis Psillos s formulation of the PI that if most past successful scientific theories turned out to be false, then, by induction on scientific theories, one must not just remain agnostic, but rather claim that current successful scientific theories are likely to be false (1995: 16). Keep in mind that the descriptive PI asserts that T2 is false.
Park 2019: descriptive pessimism from NMA: past scientific theories were unwarranted, ergo present scientific theories are unwarranted
Park 2019: descriptive pessimism from NMA: past scientific theories were unwarranted, ergo present scientific theories are unwarranted: http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/filozofia/?q=en/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://sci-hub.se/10.31577/filozofia.2019.74.4.2 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/803705298233458688/park2019.pdf In contrast, the normative PI holds that just as T1 [a past scientific theory] was unwarranted, so T2 [a current scientific theory] is unwarranted. The normative PI is neutral about the truth-value of T2. It says that T2 might be true, and that even though T2 is true, we cannot justifiably believe that it is true. No one has directly formulated the PI in this manner in the literature. It, however, can be inferred from James Ladyman s formulation that reflection on the abandonment of theories in the history of science motivates the expectation that our best current scientific theories will themselves be abandoned, and hence that we ought not to assent to them (Ladyman, 2014). To say that we ought not to assent to present theories is to say that T2 is unwarranted.
Empiricism Survey
Principles
ontological parsimony: """For example, according to your quotation, the author thinks that positing a noumenal realm does not give any theoretical benefits. So they think that it is better to be ontologically parsimonious and not posit it in the first place. It's generally thought that one does not need to show that a theoretical idea includes a blatant contradiction to choose to not endorse it. There are other epistemic virtues/vices like ontological parsimony, ideological parsimony, being in line with intuitions or current scientific understanding, etc."""
ontological parsimony:
For example, according to your quotation, the author thinks that positing a noumenal realm does not give any theoretical benefits. So they think that it is better to be ontologically parsimonious and not posit it in the first place. It's generally thought that one does not need to show that a theoretical idea includes a blatant contradiction to choose to not endorse it. There are other epistemic virtues/vices like ontological parsimony, ideological parsimony, being in line with intuitions or current scientific understanding, etc.
principle of explosion
Epistemology of Science
conditions for interpreting quasi-experimental evidence as epistemic evidence
conditions for interpreting quasi-experimental evidence as epistemic evidence: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/15674/1/Reassessing%20QEs%20final.pdf
criteria for distinguishing pseudo-sciences from sciences
Determinism: Quantum Is Truly Random
quantum mechanics is genuinely random -- it does not appear possible to interpret it as deterministic
quantum mechanics is genuinely random -- it does not appear possible to interpret it as deterministic: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1210/in-which-way-does-quantum-mechanics-disprove-determinism Most researchers on the foundations of quantum mechanics, however, usually side-step this question by taking the operationalist point of view. Tagline: "all we have is some procedures for setting up an experiment and the results of experiments". In this framework, you can derive Bell's theorem, which says that any phenomenon that is both deterministic and local must satisfy the Bell inequality. Quantum mechanics violates the Bell inequality (and there have been many experiments that mostly confirm this violation, there are some technical loopholes that need to be addressed in some of the experiments). This means that you must give up at least one: locality or determinism. Since without locality it becomes impossible to talk about causality, most people prefer not to give it up, and instead give up determinism.
violation of the Bell inequality
Utilitarianism: Public Policy
applying the utilitarian imperative in law --> justification for slow change over time
Roundabout Safety:
todo reread xxx: two studies
Comparison Costs
ending world hunger costs $30 billion per year, according to the UN
ending world hunger costs $30 billion per year, according to the UN http://archive.is/HWYiB
ending homelessness in the USA costs $20 billion per year, according to HUD
the upper bound for ending world hunger is $265 billion per year, with a resulting gain of $276 billion per year in increased productivity
the upper bound for ending world hunger is $265 billion per year, with a resulting gain of $276 billion per year in increased productivity https://reliefweb.int/report/world/multibillion-dollar-question-how-much-will-it-cost-end-hunger-and-undernutrition
Beauty Spending
American beauty spending costs (.11\*0+.21\*11+.31\*26+.18\*51+.18\*100)\*(12)\*(320 million) = $144 billion per year (lower bound)
American beauty spending costs (.11\*0+.21\*11+.31\*26+.18\*51+.18\*100)\*(12)\*(320 million) = $144 billion per year (lower bound) https://www.statista.com/statistics/715231/average-monthly-spend-on-beauty-products-us/
Fireworks
firework-related injuries cost $100 million per year
firework-related injuries cost $100 million per year: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4924a7.htm
Food
in the US in 2011, obesity's direct and indirect costs were $6899 per year per capita
in the US in 2011, obesity's direct and indirect costs were $6899 per year per capita: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5409636/ [unformatted, unread]
Basic Research Results
basic researhc may result in enormous (and unforseen) breakthroughs
basic researhc may result in enormous (and unforseen) breakthroughs: http://abt.ucpress.edu/content/72/5/38 First, show the class a photograph of a cancer cell labeled "GFP." [...] Briefly mention the leaps in understanding of cancer cell growth and cell division that GFP has made possible. Introduce the students to [...] Osamu Shimomura, who [...] was hired to simply investigate why a dried jellyfish glowed green when crushed. The resulting manuscript describing GFP gives no hint to the future implications of this protein (Shimomura et al., 1957), a discovery for which he would eventually share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008. Finally, [...] [m]ention the importance of sequencing in understanding the evolution of HIV. [...] [I]ntroduce them to a profile of John Trela, Alice Chien, and David Edgar, who discovered Taq polymerase during basic research investigations. This discovery has earned billions of dollars in royalties (Fore et al., 2006) yet was the unintentional result of a basic research investigation into life at high temperatures (Chien et al., 1976).
basic research often results in major breakthroughs ()
basic research often results in major breakthroughs (): https://www.aaas.org/news/report-basic-science-research-critical-us-well-being "Basic research is often misunderstood, because it often seems to have no immediate payoff," the MIT report says. "Yet it was just such federally funded research into the fundamental working of cells, intensified beginning with the 'War on Cancer' in 1971, that led over time to a growing arsenal of sophisticated new anticancer therapies 19 new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past two years." It adds, "Do we want similar progress on Alzheimer's, which already affects five million Americans, more than any single form of cancer? Then we should expand research in neurobiology, brain chemistry and the science of aging."
Decline
basic research funding has declined
Riskier, Government Better
government is better at handling basic science because it is too risky for private businesses
government is better at handling basic science because it is too risky for private businesses: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6080/392 For business management it is risky, and given the long time periods required for practical benefit, not sufficiently profitable, for most companies to finance such curiosity-driven fundamental research. Instead, this basic scientific research must be adequately funded by governments, both to produce the skilled problem-solvers needed by the private sector and because the research results themselves deliver substantial benefits to the local economy.
Politics
democratic administrations are associated with increased R&D spending
God as Character:
Purgatory Has Too Nice a View
We Build Yesterday
Science Fiction
technology / social conditioning in views of different species on pain
earth as magic-free zone
lex luthor was right; superman is bad
lex luthor was right; superman is bad: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10360716/1/
Real Stories
Lottery winners
Memes
Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible?
Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible? https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentation/mickens
Jews in Space
Dragon Bostrom
Bostrom dragon of life extension
Trend Over Time
higher quality data: 5% in 1890, 3% in 1900, 11% in 1960
lower quality data: 10% in 1760, 3% in 1900, 11% in 1960
anthropological data: ~50% among pre-humans, ~0% among early humans, ~10% among early modern humans
Causes of Trend Over Time: Genetics
theory
theory: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-lateralization-and-psychosis/the-history-and-geography-of-human-handedness/C50A2D64C7147EEE340222E6D2A3776E https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/CBO9780511576744.004 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/790745781266022420/mcmanus2009.pdf
Social pressure can take many forms, and it is useful to distinguish between direct and indirect social pressure. Direct social pressure involves left-handed individuals being made to write with their right hand[.] [....] However, direct social pressure of this sort only alters the phenotype, not the genotype, and the individuals still carry the genes that made them originally left-handed, and if transmitted those genes would allow those individuals offspring to become left-handed. Indirect social pressure is much more subtle, and does not directly alter the phenotype of the left-hander, but instead acts to make left-handers stigmatized, ostracized, and taboo, so that they find it harder to have offspring. The result is that their genes are less likely to be passed on, and hence the frequency of the genes responsible for left-handedness falls, and left-handedness becomes less common in the next generation.
data
data: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-lateralization-and-psychosis/the-history-and-geography-of-human-handedness/C50A2D64C7147EEE340222E6D2A3776E https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/CBO9780511576744.004 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/790745781266022420/mcmanus2009.pdf
Table 3.3 shows that while at the end of the twentieth century, right- and left-handed parents had similar numbers of children, despite parents around the turn of the century in general having more children than modern parents, left-handers had relatively fewer children, two left-handed parents having only 2.32 children, compared with 2.69 children when one parent was left-handed, and 3.10 children when both parents were right-handed.
Trend Over Time Among Ethnicities
Causes of Differences Across Regions: Genetics
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-lateralization-and-psychosis/the-history-and-geography-of-human-handedness/C50A2D64C7147EEE340222E6D2A3776E https://sci-hub.se/10.1017/CBO9780511576744.004 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/790745781266022420/mcmanus2009.pdf
In Canada, where the rate of left-handedness was 9.8%, the odds ratio was 2.09 , whereas in India, where the rate of left-handedness was 5.2%, the odds ratio was 3.07 . The implication was clear: the majority of the difference between Canada and India must be due to differences in gene frequency rather than due to differences in social pressure. Subsequently, Bryden and I collaborated with Taha Amir in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yokahida Ida in Japan, and we also put together larger Western samples (mainly Canada and the UK), and Indian samples. Of 17 850, 14 924, 4485, and 656 offspring in the West, UAE, India, and Japan, for whom p(L) was 11.5%, 7.5%, 5.8%, and 4.0% respectively, the odds ratios for the effect of having a left-handed parent were 2.11 , 2.23 , 3.18 and 3.57 respectively, which is the pattern expected from gene frequency differences. Geographical differences in the modern world seem therefore to be primarily genetic in origin, rather than due to differences in social pressure (or what I will refer to subsequently as direct social pressure ).
Causes of Handedness: Genetic
mcmanus 2007: handedness is almost certainly genetic
mcmanus 2013: handedness is almost certainly very polygenic
Ioannidis 2005
Rafi and Greenland 2020
Branch Davidians Set the Fires
recordings of the Branch Davidians
testimonies from surviving Branch Davidians
apocalyptic beliefs of the Branch Davidians and David Koresh
Literature Review
Carpenter and Dobkin 2010: literature review
Temporary Alcohol Ban: Major Effect
Barron et al 2022: a very sudden ban on alcohol sales in South Africa for 5 weeks plausibly caused a 14% decrease in all non-natural deaths, 21% decrease in homicide, 33% decrease in assault, and 19% decrease in rape
Soviet Experience: Anti-Alcohol Progrm Saved Many Lives
Shkolnikov et al 1998: under Gorbachov's anti-alcohol campaign, life expectancy rose by nearly 4 years for men and 1 year for women
Shkolnikov et al 1998: under Gorbachov's anti-alcohol campaign, homicide initially dropped by 40%; comparisons beyond 1984-1986 may be spurious due to changes in how the Soviet Union reported homicide
Shkolnikov et al 1998: under Gorbachov's anti-alcohol campaign, homicide initially dropped by 40%; comparisons beyond 1984-1986 may be spurious due to changes in how the Soviet Union reported homicide: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X98001028 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/S0305-750X(98)00102-8 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1002743389567062166/shkolnikov1998.pdf
Thus, the reversal due to the Gorbachev anti-alcohol campaign involved all types of violent deaths, but the subsequent negative changes were induced by different dynamics according to specific causes. Alcohol consumption is no longer the main explanation of Russian mortality from violence. Traffic accidents rose suddenly in 1988-1989 when the use of individual cars grew, and the safety of roads diminished. But rather quickly in the 1990s, the phenomenon ended as a result of the increasing difficulties with energy supplies. The homicide increase observed in 1988-1989 perhaps resulted from the shock of economic reforms and the decline in the standard of living, which, reinforced by the declining authoritative and police system, increased the opportunities for crime. However, such a hypothesis does not explain the slowdown observed in 1990-1991, when such difficulties had become even more intense.
Shkolnikov and Nemtsov 1997: under Gorbachov's anti-alcohol campaign (quadrupled alcohol prices, banned alcohol in public, dramatically limited state production), consumption of alcohol declined by ~22%
Shkolnikov and Nemtsov 1997: under Gorbachov's anti-alcohol campaign (quadrupled alcohol prices, banned alcohol in public, dramatically limited state production), consumption of alcohol declined by ~22%: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233403/ samogon = moonshine; adjustment method:
Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to look for an indicator of alcohol consumption other than sugar sales that is less sensitive to external influence. The ratio of accidental and violent deaths with alcohol present in the blood (VDA) to "sober" accidental and violent deaths (VDS) satisfies this condition. (Accidental poisonings by alcohol are excluded from VDA and VDS figures because in this case, alcohol causes death independently of other factors.)
Location-Based Studies
Scribner Cohen Allen 1999: New Orleans tracts with 10% more locations selling alcohol for off-site consumption ("off-sale", eg groceries) significantly correlated with 2.4% higher homicides per person
Scribner Cohen Allen 1999: New Orleans tracts with 10% more locations selling alcohol for off-site consumption ("off-sale", eg groceries) significantly correlated with 2.4% higher homicides per person: https://www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.15288/jsa.1999.60.310 https://sci-hub.se/10.15288/jsa.1999.60.310 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1002698716974694440/scribner1999.pdf on-sale (i.e., bars and restaurants), off-sale (i.e., liquor stores, convenience stores, grocery stores
Todo
Elder et al 2010: review of taxes and alcohol consumption
Elder et al 2010: review of taxes and alcohol consumption: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3735171/
A 2006 study by Gruenewald and colleagues, for example, examined California hospital admission for assaults and found that assaults were more common in areas with many alcohol outlets that required offpremises consumption such as liquor stores than in areas with many outlets where alcohol is consumed on the premises, such as bars. In fact, Gruenewald et al. (2006) found that bar density increased the assault rate only in low-income poor communities and rural communities, but not in stable, wealthy communities.
A 2006 study by Gruenewald and colleagues, for example, examined California hospital admission for assaults and found that assaults were more common in areas with many alcohol outlets that required offpremises consumption such as liquor stores than in areas with many outlets where alcohol is consumed on the premises, such as bars. In fact, Gruenewald et al. (2006) found that bar density increased the assault rate only in low-income poor communities and rural communities, but not in stable, wealthy communities.
A third approach for addressing concerns about omitted variables bias is to examine how the opening and closing of alcohol outlets affects crime rates. Teh (2008) employs this type of strategy in an event-study framework using data on liquor outlets in Los Angeles. Her empirical specifications include area fixed effects, which ease concerns about the time-invariant characteristics of neighborhoods that might affect both crime rates and the probability that a liquor store is located in the neighborhood. In her main specifications the effects of liquor availability are identified from liquor store openings and closings. She finds that both property and violent crimes increase immediately after an alcohol outlet opens, and these effects are larger in the immediate vicinity of the outlet and in low-income neighborhoods.
A third approach for addressing concerns about omitted variables bias is to examine how the opening and closing of alcohol outlets affects crime rates. Teh (2008) employs this type of strategy in an event-study framework using data on liquor outlets in Los Angeles. Her empirical specifications include area fixed effects, which ease concerns about the time-invariant characteristics of neighborhoods that might affect both crime rates and the probability that a liquor store is located in the neighborhood. In her main specifications the effects of liquor availability are identified from liquor store openings and closings. She finds that both property and violent crimes increase immediately after an alcohol outlet opens, and these effects are larger in the immediate vicinity of the outlet and in low-income neighborhoods.
Alcohol and Domestic Violence Around Sports
Ivandic Kirchmaier Torres-Blas 2021: the increase of domestic abuse after football games in Britain is driven entirely by perpetrators who had drank alcohol; and this, entirely by those who had drank during or before mid-day games; moving games later may prevent domestic abuse
Ivandic Kirchmaier Torres-Blas 2021: the increase of domestic abuse after football games in Britain is driven entirely by perpetrators who had drank alcohol; and this, entirely by those who had drank during or before mid-day games; moving games later may prevent domestic abuse: https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2021/f-June-21/Alcohol-not-emotions-responsible-for-domestic-abuse-rise-after-football-matches https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1781.pdf
Alcohol Tax: Domestic Violence: No Effect
Zeoli 2010: correlational evidence suggests that intimate partner homicide is insignificantly affected by state or federal beer excise taxes in 46 cities
Medical Consensus: Eradication
2021 position of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, European Society of Cardiology, and the World Heart Federation: total eradication of smoking remains the goal
2021 position of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, European Society of Cardiology, and the World Heart Federation: total eradication of smoking remains the goal: https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/32/3044/6284113 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/919285763345088522/ehab245.pdf
Recognizing the tremendous toll that combustible tobacco products have on global health, we call for stronger government actions that more rapidly reduce the use of combustible tobacco products. Towards this aim, we support lowering nicotine concentrations in all combustible tobacco products[.] [....] We are calling on governments to raise the price of tobacco products to levels that effectively promote adult cessation and substantially reduce youth initiation. Eliminating the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavoured tobacco products is essential to eradicating the global tobacco epidemic[.] [....] Governments should protect people from tobacco smoke by enacting comprehensive smoke-free policies, including combustible, heated tobacco, and electronic products, for all indoor public places. To the extent possible under existing legal frameworks, governments should establish and enforce comprehensive bans on tobacco industry advertising, promotions, and sponsorships. Effective pictorial health warnings should be included on all tobacco product packaging, and where possible under existing legal frameworks, plain/standardized tobacco product packaging should be used. [....] Finally, governments must take greater actions to restrict or prohibit the sale of tobacco products while ensuring established tobacco users have the support needed to quit successfully.
Does Vaping Reducing Smoking
2021 position of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, European Society of Cardiology, and the World Heart Federation: total eradication of smoking remains the goal
2021 position of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, European Society of Cardiology, and the World Heart Federation: total eradication of smoking remains the goal: https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/32/3044/6284113 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/919285763345088522/ehab245.pdf
Evidence is limited regarding the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid. Many e-cigarette users also continue to smoke cigarettes, and dual use of e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke traditional cigarettes is not associated with higher rates of quitting.
Hartmann-Boyce 2020: meta-study: only a few large trials, but found moderate evidence that quit rates were higher among those randomly assigned to receive nicotine e-cigarettes compared with nicotine replacement therapy and among those randomly assigned to receive nicotine e-cigarettes compared with nonnicotine e-cigarettes
Hartmann-Boyce 2020: meta-study: only a few large trials, but found moderate evidence that quit rates were higher among those randomly assigned to receive nicotine e-cigarettes compared with nicotine replacement therapy and among those randomly assigned to receive nicotine e-cigarettes compared with nonnicotine e-cigarettes: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub6/abstract https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/919290622987366420/hartmann-boyce2020.pdf
Hennepin County Autopsy Report by Andrew Baker
Andrew Baker 2020 May 26: press release: Floyd's death was a "homicide", caused by "cardiopulmonary arrest" complicated by "law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression", with other significant conditions "arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease; fentanyl intoxication; recent methamphetamine use" (high blood pressure, slightly larger heart, fatty arteries, fent, meth)
Andrew Baker 2020 May 26: press release: Floyd's death was a "homicide", caused by "cardiopulmonary arrest" complicated by "law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression", with other significant conditions "arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease; fentanyl intoxication; recent methamphetamine use" (high blood pressure, slightly larger heart, fatty arteries, fent, meth): https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/30/facebook-posts/no-autopsy-doesnt-say-george-floyd-died-overdose/ https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MNHENNE/2020/06/01/file_attachments/1464238/2020-3700%20Floyd,%20George%20Perry%20Update%206.1.2020.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20200601231822/https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MNHENNE/2020/06/01/file_attachments/1464238/2020-3700%20Floyd,%20George%20Perry%20Update%206.1.2020.pdf https://archive.ph/EnIXP
Cause of death: Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression Manner of death: Homicide How injury occurred: Decedent experienced a cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by law enforcement officer(s) Other significant conditions: Arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease; fentanyl intoxication; recent methamphetamine use Please direct any media inquiries to Carolyn Marinan, Hennepin County Communications at carolyn.marinan@hennepin.us. Comments: Manner of death classification is a statutory function of the medical examiner, as part of death certification for purposes of vital statistics and public health. Manner of death is not a legal determination of culpability or intent, and should not be used to usurp the judicial process. Such decisions are outside the scope of the Medical Examiner s role or authority. Under Minnesota state law, the Medical Examiner is a neutral and independent office and is separate and distinct from any prosecutorial authority or law enforcement agency.
Andrew Baker 2020 May 26: full autopsy report: several small blunt force injuries were present (especially on face), natural diseases were present
Andrew Baker 2020 May 26: full autopsy report: several small blunt force injuries were present (especially on face), natural diseases were present: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/30/facebook-posts/no-autopsy-doesnt-say-george-floyd-died-overdose/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200801000420/https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/floyd-autopsy-6-3-20.pdf https://archive.ph/DZSdg
46-year-old man who became unresponsive while being restrained by law enforcement officers; he received emergency medical care in the field and subsequently in the Hennepin HealthCare (HHC) Emergency Department, but could not be resuscitated.
Andrew Baker 2020 May 26: full autopsy report: fentanyl and methamphetamines were found in blood
Andrew Baker 2020 May 26: full autopsy report: Floyd did not have active COVID
Andrew Baker 2020 May 26: full autopsy report: Floyd did not have active COVID: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/30/facebook-posts/no-autopsy-doesnt-say-george-floyd-died-overdose/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200801000420/https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/floyd-autopsy-6-3-20.pdf https://archive.ph/DZSdg
Comments: The finding of sickled-appearing cells in many of the autopsy tissue sections prompted the Hemoglobin S quantitation reported above. This quantitative result is indicative of sickle cell trait. Red blood cells in individuals with sickle cell trait are known to sickle as a postmortem artifact. The decedent s antemortem peripheral blood smear (made from a complete blood count collected 5/25/20 at 9:00 p.m.) was reviewed by an expert HHC hematopathologist at the Medical Examiner s request. This review found no evidence of antemortem sickling. The decedent was known to be positive for 2019-nCoV RNA on 4/3/2020. Since PCR positivity for 2019-nCoV RNA can persist for weeks after the onset and resolution of clinical disease, the autopsy result most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent PCR positivity from previous infection.
Autopsist Testimony: Floyd Died From Neck Depression, Not Fentanyl
Andrew Baker, did autopsy on George Floyd: the top line cause of death was subdual, restraint, nad neck compression by law enforcement; these were the most significant causes of death
Andrew Baker, did autopsy on George Floyd: the top line cause of death was subdual, restraint, nad neck compression by law enforcement; these were the most significant causes of death: https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/04/09/985722945/live-video-medical-examiner-to-testify-about-george-floyds-death https://archive.ph/wip/cxgUV
"In my opinion, the law enforcement subdual, restraint and the neck compression was just more than Mr. Floyd could take, by virtue of those heart conditions," Baker concluded. There were fentanyl and methamphetamine in Floyd's toxicology report, Blackwell noted, and inquired why Baker had not listed those as the "top line" causes of death in his report. "The top line of the cause of death is really what you think is the most important thing that you think precipitated the death. Other things that you think played a role in the death but were not direct causes" appear in the "other significant conditions" part of the death certificate, Baker explained. "Mr. Floyd's use of fentanyl did not cause the subdual or neck restraint, his heart disease did not cause the subdual or the neck restraint," Baker said. They were items that may have contributed to his death but were not the direct cause, he said.
Expert Testimony: Floyd Died From Neck Depression, Not Fentanyl
Summary: George Floyd did not die from a fentanyl overdose; while fentanyl was in his blood, it doesn't appear that he was high on fentanyl at the time of death
Martin Tobin MD, critical care pulmonary specialist: Floyd died from low oxygen: "Mr. Floyd died from a low level of oxygen, and this caused damage to his brain that we see. And it also caused a PEA [pulseless electrical activity] arrhythmia that caused his heart to stop."
Martin Tobin MD, critical care pulmonary specialist: Floyd died from low oxygen: "Mr. Floyd died from a low level of oxygen, and this caused damage to his brain that we see. And it also caused a PEA [pulseless electrical activity] arrhythmia that caused his heart to stop." https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/04/08/985347984/chauvin-trial-medical-expert-says-george-floyd-died-from-a-lack-of-oxygen https://archive.ph/gu3dD "
Because Floyd continued to speak for the first nearly five minutes of being held down, Tobin said, "We know that his oxygen levels were enough to keep his brain alive" during that time. But shortly after the five-minute mark, Tobin said, Floyd's leg can be seen moving, seemingly involuntarily. "That is when he has suffered brain injury," the doctor said. "We can tell from the movement of his leg that the level of oxygen in his brain has caused what we call a myoclonic seizure-type activity." Clinicians see patients suddenly extend or straighten their legs because of low oxygen levels affecting their brain, Tobin added. After Floyd's condition reached that point, Tobin said, Chauvin's movement of his leg away from Floyd's neck and airway would not have much of an impact. Tobin said he's aware that Floyd had preexisting medical conditions. But he concluded, "A healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died.
Martin Tobin MD, critical care pulmonary specialist: Floyd did not die from fentanyl; his breathing was too fast and he never entered a coma
Martin Tobin MD, critical care pulmonary specialist: Floyd did not die from fentanyl; his breathing was too fast and he never entered a coma: https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/04/08/985347984/chauvin-trial-medical-expert-says-george-floyd-died-from-a-lack-of-oxygen https://archive.ph/gu3dD "
Tobin says that using his clinical skills, he was able to calculate Floyd's respiratory rate at 22, noting that in a roughly 19-second span of a police video, Floyd is seen breathing between seven and eight times as he lies on the street. "It's extremely significant," the doctor said, "because one of the things in this case is the question of fentanyl." If that opiate was affecting Floyd, he said, it would have dropped his respiratory rate to around 10 breaths. Asked by the prosecutor if he saw a depressed breathing rate in Floyd, Tobin replied, "No. It's normal.
2020 Polling
Data For Progress, 2020 Oct 19 to Nov 1, n=527 likely voters: first choice: 44% statehood, 18% enhanced commonwealth, 17% current status, 15% independence, 6% sovereign free association; final ranked choice round: statehood 50%, enhanced commonwealth 43% OR statehood 55% sovereign free association 33%
Data For Progress, 2020 Oct 19 to Nov 1, n=527 likely voters: first choice: 44% statehood, 18% enhanced commonwealth, 17% current status, 15% independence, 6% sovereign free association; final ranked choice round: statehood 50%, enhanced commonwealth 43% OR statehood 55% sovereign free association 33%: https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/puerto-rico-commission-self-determination https://www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/2021/3/dfp-pr-status-rcv.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/1021593251670667277/dfp-pr-status-rcv.pdf
2020 Referenda Results
2020 Puerto Rican status referendum: 52.5% voted yes for PR to be "admitted immediately to the Union as a State" and 47.5% voted no (+5% for statehood); turnout was 54.7% of active voters
2020 Puerto Rican status referendum: 52.5% voted yes for PR to be "admitted immediately to the Union as a State" and 47.5% voted no (+5% for statehood); turnout was 54.7% of active voters: https://elecciones2020.ceepur.org/Escrutinio_General_93/index.html#en/default/PLEBISCITO_Resumen.xml " Debe Puerto Rico ser admitido inmediatamente dentro de la Uni n como un Estado?" S No / "Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State?" Yes No
2020 Puerto Rican status referendum: turnout was 73.2% of effective voters (line 3), which subtracts nonvoters who did not vote in the previous election (A2) from the number of registered voters (line 1)
2020 Puerto Rican status referendum: turnout was 73.2% of effective voters (line 3), which subtracts nonvoters who did not vote in the previous election (A2) from the number of registered voters (line 1): https://www.puertoricoreport.com/focus-on-voters-rights-skips-puerto-rico/ https://www.puertoricoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CERTIFICACION_SOBRE_LA_PARTICIPACION_EN_PLEBISCITO_2020.pdf https://hr1522.org/documents/ https://hr1522.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/certificacion-sobre-la-participacion-en-plebiscito-2020.pdf https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/978300906653253734/certificacion-sobre-la-participacion-en-plebiscito-2020.pdf
Dicho resultado de participaci n se computa conforme al Art culo 10.5 2 (f) de la Ley 58-2020, conocida como C digo Electoral de Puerto Rico de 2020, el cual dispone que: En el rengl n agrupado de Participaci n Electoral , se incluir solamente a los electores activos que figuran votando en el presente evento electoral, y sin tomar en consideraci n a los electores activos que no votaron en las elecciones generales precedentes. Los electores activos que no votaron en las elecciones generales precedentes ser n aquellos codificados por la Comisi n como A-2 en el Registro General de Electores.
Sixteen College Graduates in Congo
Fall 1961: while it is untrue that Congo only had 16 people with college degrees (those were essentially PhD's), its population of 13.5 million had just 4,000 college graduates
Fall 1961: while it is untrue that Congo only had 16 people with college degrees (those were essentially PhD's), its population of 13.5 million had just 4,000 college graduates: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2294315 https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/2294315
A first attempt at restating the case in something else than simply emotional propaganda terms was made by an American educational missionary, the Rev. John A. Ball, Director of the White Fathers Information Center, in the following communication addressed to the New York Times in January 1961: The American press has repeatedly stated that there are only sixteen college graduates among the Congo's population of 14,000,000. This is simply not true. The 417 native Congolese Catholic priests should certainly be considered as "college graduates" since they have followed the same course of study as is offered in any Catholic seminary. Furthermore, I am personally acquainted with several who have doctorate degrees from recognized universities. Actually, there are over 4,000 Congolese who have the equivalent of an American college education. The nowfamous "sixteen" are men who have university degrees corresponding to post-graduate studies in the United States.'4 It must be emphasized, however, that the figure of 4,000 college-educated Congolese is obviously cumulative. It nevertheless presents an order of magnitude that is at variance with the magical figure of "sixteen college graduates" that no doubt will be foreveremembered asthe sum total of Belgium's educational efforts in the center of Africa. In actual fact, even that figure was inaccurate by July 1960, for another fourteen graduates joined the 1959 class to form a total of thirty such graduates - equivalent to American graduate degrees.
Note: This section summarizes several books, some of which I strongly disagree with, and others which have good and bad sections. Unlike other sections, where I mostly try to concentrate evidence I agree with (or refute studies I disagree with), this section is almost entirely a series of raw summaries.
Note: This section summarizes several books, some of which I strongly disagree with, and others which have good and bad sections. Unlike other sections, where I mostly try to concentrate evidence I agree with (or refute studies I disagree with), this section is almost entirely a series of raw summaries.
Political Social Media Use as a Shallow Substitute for Political Activism
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
These common forms of engagement do not obligate participants into long-term relationships. They can be turned off anytime. Even deep hobbies cannot be turned off so readily as politics. If one of those airplane craftsmen in the factory in Sheboygan called it quits or if Clayton was expected to be at a ham radio mountain retreat but bailed out at the last minute, other participants would be disappointed, hurt even. If he didn t show, they d call him up and find out where he was. In shallow hobbies, we are emphatically not being relied upon. When people quit Facebook, nobody likely calls them up or sends an email to convey concern or disappointment that they are no longer offering their political hot takes. The relationships are not serious enough that anyone would care to make such a call. That no one is relying on you is a great sign that the activity you are doing is a shallow hobby
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
Protests organized by groups with long-term visions, such as labor unions, will tend to be more strategic than cathartic. Even in a protest that feels like merely a cathartic exercise to outsiders, organizers will be weaving through the crowd with clipboards looking to recruit volunteers into more sustained actions. These organizers have a strategy even if participants do not realize it. In contrast, protests hastily organized by a lone citizen who wrote a viral social media post will likely be more cathartic than strategic.
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
Social media use, in general, probably operates differently for those committed to organizing than for those who tepidly support the efforts of organizers. For volunteers who are embedded in real-life political communities, social media may reinforce their commitments they share pictures, reflections, or relevant news for their community. But for hobbyists, social media is a token form of involvement that makes them feel connected to those doing hard work and may replace the desire to actually do the hard work.
Decline in Political Activism Yielding Community Organizing
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
The philosopher Aristotle argued that without leisure time, democracy cannot thrive. If a citizen s entire day is dedicated to labor, no time is left to learn civic skills or actively engage in political debate. [....] The political scientist Robert Putnam revealed another connection between politics and leisure in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone. 3 Putnam s idea was not that politics affects leisure choices, but the opposite: our leisure choices affect politics. The way we spend our free time affects how we participate in democracy. In a bowling league or at church, we get to know people in our communities. When we stay home and watch TV or watch our laptop screens, we have fewer connections to the community and become unpracticed at the skills necessary for getting things done together. Politics requires leisure; politics affects leisure; leisure affects politics.
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
The time-use statistics are about the general US population. What about the behaviors of the politically informed and engaged Americans, that subset of people you are probably part of? The subset of the population that consumes political news every day and cares a lot about politics isn t particularly active in community life, either. Consider the American National Election Study, the flagship political science survey of American attitudes since the 1940s. Among daily news consumers in 2016, less than 4 percent reported doing any work whatsoever on behalf of a campaign or party that election year. Even among those who reported they were afraid of Donald Trump, only 5 percent reported that they did any work to support their side. Of Americans who consume news every day, most report belonging to zero organizations. Sixty-five percent report that in the last year they have done no work with other people to solve a community problem. Sixty-eight percent say they have attended zero meetings in the last year about a community issue. The population that is informed enough and cares enough about politics to follow the daily news is mostly disengaged from participation in political and community endeavors.
Hersh 2020: hollow ineffective parties
Hersh 2020: hollow ineffective parties: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
If there s a local political party committee in your area, it probably looks nothing like the organization I just described. In most of the country, the state and local parties are hollow, to use the term of political scientists Sam Rosenfeld and Daniel Schlozman. As another political scientist, Julia Azari, has put it, politics in the United States is defined by the strange combination of strong partisanship but weak party organizations. In many states, the state Democratic and Republican Party offices, let alone the county ones, are barely staffed except during election seasons.
Community Service Builds Political Power
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
The tight relationship between community service and political power is nothing new. It s obvious to everyone except the political hobbyists. Your community has needs. You meet those needs directly by providing service and indirectly by amassing political power. To amass power in a democracy, you meet the needs of people and show them you care so they will give you their votes and their voices when you call upon them to act. This cause and effect is obvious to the National Rifle Association, which supports local clubs across the country, building community and training local leaders, offering services such as gun-safety classes and insurance. It is also obvious to politically engaged churches on the left and the right. 17 It is obvious to the new crop of Democratic Socialist chapters, such as one in Pennsylvania that hosts all-day childcare events when public schools are closed, free lunches, and runs free car-repair clinics. 18
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
The experimental evidence we have in political science suggests it would. When campaigns and parties engage in more personalized, more genuine, more neighborhood-based electioneering, they get more votes. When they leverage personal relationships and social pressure, they get more votes. 3 Local organizers who don t just show up in the weeks preceding an election but who are in a community longterm are the logical conclusion of the experimental evidence that political scientists have amassed.
E.g., Betsy Sinclair, The Social Citizen: Peer Networks and Political Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012); Green, Gerber,and Larimer, Social Pressure and Voter Turnout.
Political Hobbyism Rising: Rise in Political Engagement, Decline in Political Participation
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
Yet, while the proportion of people who say they are interested in elections reached a record high in 2016, the rate at which people report volunteering or participating has sharply declined. In the 1960, 1964, and 1968 election seasons, respectively, 13, 17, and 9 percent of college-educated respondents said they did some work for a campaign or candidate. In the 2012 and 2016 elections, when the collegeeducated population was three times larger, the rate of those saying they worked for a campaign was a third as large as it had been in the 1960s. Only 5 percent reported doing any work in the 2012 or 2016 elections. Asked if they attended any kind of political meeting or rally in the 1960, 1964, and 1968 elections, 11, 24, and 18 percent of college-educated respondents, respectively, said yes. In 2012 and 2016, 8 and 9 percent, respectively, said so. Education may have conferred on the country a growing sophistication in talking about elections or consuming news about elections or proclaiming interest in elections, but not in attending a meeting of a political organization or working on its behalf. 4
Post-Materialism as Cause of Political Hobbyism
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
Left-leaning advocacy organizations that grew up beginning in the 1970s tended to focus on postmaterialist issues, issues related to the environment and tolerance. They placed much less emphasis on bread-and-butter economic issues facing the working class, on economic inequality, on job training. When the time came for actions on issues that liberals cared about, such as the environment, the organizations felt hollow. As one John Kerry staffer told the sociologist Dana Fisher in 2004, in reference to national advocacy groups, None of these organizations can actually produce two bodies when they need to. 22 In 2012, when Skocpol, joined by Vanessa Williamson, assessed the growing Tea Party movement, they were struck by the well-organized meetings and volunteers willing to roll up their sleeves and take on all the logistical headaches of running local groups. This felt different from their experience on the left. Opinionated, educated liberals, they write, often have no idea what happens in state legislatures, local government boards, or political party committees. Grassroots Tea Partiers, by contrast, know the rules and procedures for passing bills and advancing regulations in detail for local, state, and national government. 23 Tea Party groups were often short-lived local organizations that withered away by the end of the Obama era. For some activists, participation was surely motivated more by short-term hobbyism, news obsession, and conspiracy theories than by a commitment to long-term power. Nevertheless, when the groups were strong, they were committed to the logistics and rules of power acquisition. They got off their couches and into the weeds of bottomup leadership. 24
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
A certain detachment from feelings of fear and insecurity is needed to experience politics as a leisure-time activity. While nonwhite Americans, particularly those in the middle and upper classes, can engage in political hobbyism as much as anyone else, research on racial politics suggests some important differences in minority communities that should limit the phenomenon. Namely, no matter how economically or professionally successful, black voters tend to see their own fate, and the fate of their families, as tied to the fate of the racial group as a whole. To a lesser extent this pattern is visible among Latinos as well. 8 The idea of linked fate may be the best explanation for why racial minorities, blacks especially, tend to be unified politically even though they exhibit internal diversity in wealth or religiosity or other traits that are predictive of political divisions among whites. Linked fate also rationalizes political action as a form of self-preservation and self-interest. Supporting the group, empowering the group, also helps empower oneself and one s family.
Success Story: Precinct 206 College Democrats
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf Drew came to speak to the Dems of North Meck about something specific: starting precinct organizations as affiliated groups with the state Democratic Party. In a competitive area such as North Meck, Drew said, volunteers should focus not on one-off events and independent organizations, but on building sustainable Democratic committees. If folks start these groups within the structure of the Democratic Party, they get resources from the party that they couldn t otherwise get, such as access to the national Democrats voter database and computer system, which the state party pays for and shares with its local affiliates. Plus, a sustained organization gives volunteers time to meet neighbors and form deeper relationships with voters than they otherwise could do from one-off volunteering.
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf Many College Democrats and College Republicans clubs, not just at Davidson, are kind of insular pizza-eating clubs, Greg says. They host forums, debates, discussions, all on campus, away from the political world around them. And they order pizza. And these are some of the most engaged students on campus. Greg and Drew thought a local precinct organization with students in leadership positions could draw students in a way that existing political organizations could not.
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
At the end of the meetings, the group served tea and cookies. It helps to have something, Drew says. It helps people linger after and socialize. For some retirees, Precinct 206 has become their primary social network. This group serves a really important social role in the lives of our members. People send Drew notes saying they ve met more friends in this town in the last year than in the previous twenty.
Success Story: Voice of Westmoreland, Vow
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf VOW held protests, but only as deliberate tools to recruit other volunteers. Angela comes back to those memories of Wisconsin rallies. You need to have conversations with people who aren t already convinced. At rallies, you might think you re drawing attention, but your snarky signs aren t going to persuade anyone. But in an area where liberals were in hiding, lonely at home and in church, demonstrations served the specific purpose of recruitment. Angela and her team would stand in that plaza next to the court, her kids in a carrier and in a stroller, and new allies would approach them, just like how the first small group found Angela in the same plaza. Between the heckling yells from afar of Build that fucking wall! a few people would come over and write down their contact information. They would start coming to monthly meetings. The VOW contact list started to grow.
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf In Pittsburgh, people her age were organizing in activist groups that were, at the time, largely focused on protests. She joined them a few times, but she had mixed feelings about it. It was good to see people who cared and were excited to be involved. But the focus on protests reminded her too much of what hadn t worked in Wisconsin. Constantly calling or standing outside your congressman s office or the Women s March, is that long-lasting? They have funny signs, but so what? I saw that in Wisconsin. That stuff doesn t work. 2
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf Just as VOW was getting off the ground, an opportunity dropped in their laps. The local congressman, Republican Tim Murphy, who had been in office since 2003, was caught having an affair. 3 Text messages revealed that this antiabortion legislator had asked his extramarital partner to have an abortion. He resigned from office in the fall of 2017. A special election was called. VOW got volunteers to knock on doors in their ultraconservative area on behalf of the Democratic candidate. That candidate, Conor Lamb, won by 755 votes in February 2018.
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf The most active volunteers became a community. For the retirees, VOW became a primary social scene. For young families, too. They call the kids running around the meetings the VOW cousins. Community begets good deeds. VOW doesn t talk about this part, would never brag about it. They take care of their growing community of friends and neighbors. Angela has driven undocumented immigrants in her VOW community to doctors appointments. Some are too afraid of being deported if they get pulled over that they won t drive at all, even to the doctor s. One woman in the community was about to be evicted from her home, and the group quickly came to her assistance. When the federal government shut down in 2019, the group chipped in for gas cards and diapers to help those not making ends meet. All quietly and behind the scenes. This is the most powerful thing I ve ever done, Angela says about creating VOW. It s the thing I feel called to do.
Failure of the Arab Spring
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
The Arab Spring failed nearly everywhere. The aftermath has been called the Arab Winter, a wake of death, destruction, and capsized rickety boats that carried nowdrowned refugee children. The Arab Spring was atragedy. The movement failed, according to several scholars, because it lacked durable party organizations. In Egypt, for instance, protests in Cairo s Tahrir Square spurred elections, which was a major victory after a mere eighteen days of protest, the country s leader of almost thirty years stepped down. But the secular movement in Tahrir Square had no leaders, no ability to organize, and no capacity to mobilize voters. The liberal energy that spurred change lost the elections to an organized party, the right-wing Muslim Brotherhood, which was eventually forced out of power by a military coup. Activists with an Internet connection could crumble a government but could not build one in its place. 9 To do that, you need a hierarchy of leaders from low-level people willing to knock on thirty-five doors to middle-level organizers to higher-level leaders with a plan. In short, you need an organization. In Egypt, the protesters never had that.
Against Primaries
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
Almost immediately, leaders were disagreeing about the consequences of switching from convention systems to primaries for state and local offices. Robert La Follette, who served as representative, then governor, then senator for Wisconsin from 1885 to 1925, and who was one of the leading proponents of primaries, claimed, Under a primary election law, men of the highest talent and especial fitness for public life will readily consent to become candidates for public office men who can scarcely be tempted to stand as candidates under the present system. 16 Political scientists have measured no noticeable change in the quality of candidates. And to the surprise of reformers, most voters didn t take any interest in primaries. They would vote in general elections but didn t care to weigh in on the party nominations. 17 That s true even today; only a fraction of general-election voters participate in primaries for state and local offices. Critics of primaries were also uneasy that high-profile candidates who hadn t proven themselves as stewards of a party s values could swoop in and dominate. In his Pulitzer Prize winning account of this era, Richard Hofstadter argued that by creating two campaigns (a primary and a general) instead of one, primary reform increased the influence of money and celebrity without many benefits in terms of candidate quality or citizen participation. 18
Hobbyists Choose Hobbies Like Their Work
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
Sociologists have found that people who are in fields that they chose on their own (these tend to be higher-status professions) seek catharsis in their hobbies. 6 In a cathartic hobby, you utilize similar skills that you employ in work, except in a lowstakes environment. For example, interviews with surgeons revealed a frequent interest in hobbies such as model ship building. Why would surgeons want to spend their free time working with tiny tools and doing intricate handwork? 7 Because they get to use the skills they are good at but without any pressure. That is the catharsis. Unlike in the operating room, it doesn t matter if they make a mistake or leave the job half done.
Comparing Shallow Political Activity and Shallow Religious Affiliation
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
In shallow religious engagement, as in shallow politics and shallow hobbies, participants are looking for instant gratification, the equivalent of drinking green beer on St. Patrick s Day as a symbolic gesture toward one s Irish identity. 9 In religious communities, political organizations, and serious hobby clubs, participants are in it for the delayed gratification that comes from sustained relationships and concrete goals. Reverend Daniel emphasizes that some regular church attendees in her own community say they are spiritual but not religious, and she has no issue with them. 10 Even though they say they aren t religious, they act as part of a community and serve others. A person who seeks only secular benefits from religious participation personal growth, moral improvement, opportunities to do good deeds can find those benefits from joining a church and actively participating in a community. These benefits cannot be realized, goes this critique, through one-off events, solitary sunsets at the beach, or spirituality iPhone apps, which do not place individuals in a real community. 11
Money in Politics: Interviewing Megadonors
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
In the public s mind, wealthy donors shell out money to politicians to get something in return, such as business-friendly laws and regulations. But political scientists who have studied campaign donations have not seen much evidence that the typical big-money donors are giving money in return for favorable policy. Lobbyists aside, the typical high-dollar political donor doesn t have transparent financial motivations. Consider that 98 percent of donors give money to candidates from only one political party. If they wanted to influence those in power, they might instead donate to both sides, the way a lot of big corporations do. 1 Or consider that donors to congressional campaigns are not more likely to give to politicians who are committee chairs, who are on the powerful finance and appropriations committees, who are members of the majority party, or who are longterm incumbents who wield power in Congress. 2 The money doesn t seem directed to maximize donors influence.
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
On our survey Schaffner and I asked donors about a hypothetical scenario. We asked half of the donors how likely they would be to give $1,000 to a political party to attend an intimate dinner with a prominent elected leader. In this scenario, a donor gets to support their party plus gets the entertainment value of the dinner. Forty-nine percent of the donors said they were somewhat or very likely to make a contribution with these terms. For the other half of the donors, we modified the language of the hypothetical. We asked them if they d pay a $1,000 fee to an event planning company to attend the intimate dinner with the politician. In this scenario, a donor gets to have a fun dinner but the money does not serve the party. Nor does it benefit the politician s campaign in a way that would make the politician feel beholden to the donor. But even here, 38 percent of the donors said they would pay up, which is not much lower than the percent eager to donate to the party. For a sizable chunk of the donor class, it seems as if the motivation is not party boosting, but entertainment. 7
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
The hobbyist motivation among wealthy donors is also problematic for a reason that doesn t have a parallel in the nonprofit world: partisan asymmetry. Unlike Democratic donors, Republican donors typically support politicians whose policy priorities align with a wealthy person s financial interests. The donors can view donations as an investment. When Schaffner and I asked max-out donors why they made their contribution, many more Republicans than Democrats said that a very or extremely important reason for their gift was that the politician could affect the donor s own industry (37 percent of Republicans versus 22 percent of Democrats).
Money in Politics: Favors Crudely Negative Attacks
Hersh 2020
Hersh 2020: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140364591 https://u1lib.org/book/5409346/01788b https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/966535310794182706/Hersh2016.pdf
More concerning, small-dollar donations flow to candidates who make crude, vicious, and provocative appeals. Small donations are commonly solicited online or through email, in messages sent out to thousands, if not millions, of potential supporters. The solicitations lend themselves to scientific investigation about what works and doesn t work. Campaigns and their consultants test and tweak messages, running experiments on small samples of potential donors and learning which appeals do the best job atattracting donations. Through experimentation, they have learned to taunt. The Obama campaign, for instance, found that its appeals were most effective at raising money when they focused on competition and took a nasty tone that Obama himself was not enthused about. 16 According to a leading expert on campaign finance data, the candidates who can attract the most small-dollar donations are not just those who are strongly ideological, but who can use media to heckle. 17 For example, Representative Joe Wilson, who famously screamed that President Obama was a liar when Obama was speaking before Congress in 2009, raised $2 million in the days following his outburst.
The Racialism Question Properly Stated
Rutherford 2020: summary of racialism as a question
Rutherford 2020: summary of racialism as a question: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Are there essential biological (that is, genetic) differences between populations that account for socially important similarities or divisions within or between those populations?
Science and Reality Against Race and Racism
Rutherford 2020: banger quote against scientific racism
Rutherford 2020: banger quote against scientific racism: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Race is real because we perceive it. Racism is real because we enact it. Neither race nor racism has foundations in science. It is our duty to contest the warping of scientific research, especially if it is being used to justify prejudice. If you are a racist, then you are asking for a fight. But science is my ally, not yours, and your fight is not just with me, but with reality.
Rutherford 2020: banger quote against scientific racism
Rutherford 2020: banger quote against scientific racism: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
[R]acism is not simply wrong because it is based on scientifically specious ideas. Racism is wrong because it is an affront to human dignity. The rights of people and the respect that individuals are due by dint of being a person are not predicated on biology. They are human rights. Hypothetically, if there were genetic differences between populations that we have not found yet, and these do correspond with the folk definitions of race, the fact that we have not found them means they are tiny at best.
Rutherford 2020: banger quote against scientific racism
Rutherford 2020: banger quote against scientific racism: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
The sweet irony is that the whole science of human genetics was founded by racists in a time of racism, and singularly has become the field that has demonstrated the scientific falsity of race. As a result, the foundations of racism cannot be drawn from science.
Observed Differences vs Causal Differences
Rutherford 2020: the racist is satisfied with observed differences (ex: 13/50), but the scientific anti-racist is not, because the racist assumes causality
Rutherford 2020: the racist is satisfied with observed differences (ex: 13/50), but the scientific anti-racist is not, because the racist assumes causality: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
If you are using science to justify a racist opinion, observations of performance differences of these groups in cognitive tasks are the end of a conversation. For someone who is interested in science as a mechanism for pursuing truth, they are the beginning.
Racialists Are Obsessed, Scientists Have Abandoned Race, Which Advantages the Racialist
Rutherford 2020: racialism dominates fringe academia
Rutherford 2020: racialism dominates fringe academia: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
People fixated on finding biological bases for racial differences appear more interested in the racism than the science. Arguments in online social media seem to involve people for whom demonstrations of genetic or behavioural differences being evidence for racial categories are the absorbing passion of their lives; these are people who are invigorated by animosity. This is a difficult landscape to navigate, because the vast majority of scientists abandoned the scientific validity of race many years ago, and as a result, very few people in genetics study questions specifically of race. Only the fixated remain, as if they have some secret knowledge that we have been suppressing for reasons of ideology.
Against "Race Doesn't Exist" or "Race Is a Social Construct"
Rutherford 2020: saying that race does not exist is counter-productive; it exists as a social phenomenon, but science explicitly rejects the biological phenomenon
Rutherford 2020: saying that race does not exist is counter-productive; it exists as a social phenomenon, but science explicitly rejects the biological phenomenon: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
In modern biology, race has been used with more specificity, as informal categories that people generally understand due to contemporary common usage. But as a result of ever more precise taxonomy in humans, none of the historical or colloquial usages of race tallies with what genetics tells us about human variation. As a result, we are prone to saying glib things such as race doesn t exist , or race is just a social construct . While these sentiments may be well-intentioned, they can have the effect of undermining the scientifically more accurate way of expressing the complexities of human variation, and our clumsy attempts to classify ourselves or others. Race most certainly does exist because it is a social construct. What we must answer is the question of whether there is a basis to race that is meaningful in terms of fundamental biology and behaviour. Are there essential biological (that is, genetic) differences between populations that account for socially important similarities or divisions within or between those populations?
Rutherford 2020: visible minority status
Rutherford 2020: visible minority status: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
What we can also say with an arsenal of scientific ammunition is that though skin colour is the first and most obvious way we see humans, it s a superficial route to an understanding of human variation, and a very bad way to classify people. Our view of reality, so profoundly limited, has been co-opted into a deliberate political lie. We say black when what we mean is recently descended from a continent that has more genetic diversity and pigmentation diversity than anywhere else on Earth .
Rutherford 2020: saying that race is a social construct does not mean race doesn't shape our social relations
Rutherford 2020: saying that race is a social construct does not mean race doesn't shape our social relations: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Race is a social construct. This does not mean it is invalid or unimportant. Humans are social animals, and the way we perceive each other is of paramount importance. But it does mean that the colloquial use of race is a taxonomy that is not supported by our understanding of fundamental biology, meaning genetics and evolution.
History: Racism Outside Christendom
Rutherford 2020: medieval Islam developed its own racialist defense of slavery of African people
Rutherford 2020: medieval Islam developed its own racialist defense of slavery of African people: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Within Islam in the Middle Ages, there is minimal discussion in the surviving literature of superiority or prejudice owing to skin colour, until the writings of the eleventh-century philosopher Avicenna, who believed that people exposed to extremes of climate (relative to the Middle East) were more suited to slavery due to regionally determined differences in temperament: pale-skinned Europeans were ignorant and lacked discernment, dark-skinned Africans were fickle and foolish. Both, therefore, were suited to oppression during a period that encompassed more than 900 years and upwards of five million enslaved people.
Rutherford 2020: evolution is not a tree, but a tangled bank
Rutherford 2020: evolution is not a tree, but a tangled bank: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
What we see with our eyes is the merest fraction of a human. The metaphor of a tree is how we tend to think of evolution, with its trunk and boughs, bifurcating into unique and discrete branches, until it gets to the twig of humankind. But the explicatory power of a tree for understanding huge swathes of human behaviour and our evolutionary trajectory is seriously limited. Comparing human evolution to a tree only works if we mean trees that have been cultivated by us: pollarded to nurture new growth; espaliered coaxed along other migratory pathways; and pleached forced to entwine with other branches. That we are the product not of a tree but a tangled bank may not be obvious. But that is why we invented science: to free ourselves from the shackles of perception, to see things including people as they really are.
Does Clustering or Identification Mean Races Exist? No
Rutherford 2020: the ability to cluster different people into different "ethnic" groups does not mean those differences have interesting and important social differences caused by those genetic differences
Rutherford 2020: the ability to cluster different people into different "ethnic" groups does not mean those differences have interesting and important social differences caused by those genetic differences: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Humans suffer universally from a syndrome that Richard Dawkins called the tyranny of the discontinuous mind . We yearn to categorise things and fail to recognise continuity. We strain to put things into discrete boxes, and define things by what they are rather than what they do. This is a problem in science, and one that relates to the Linnaean classification that biologists cling to.
Rutherford 2020: examining Rosenberg and Tang type k-cluster identification papers: identificability does not mean importance
Rutherford 2020: examining Rosenberg and Tang type k-cluster identification papers: identificability does not mean importance: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
That is remarkably similar to the classic racial taxonomies from the era of scientific racism. Does this mean they were right after all? Well, no. This type of analysis shows broad similarities in populations: it reflects geographical landmasses, which are not insurmountable barriers to reproduction, but do hinder interbreeding; it also reflects evolutionary history and migration. The data also showed long, clear gradients between all of the clusters, and no unambiguous way to say where one cluster ends and another begins. Without sharp boundaries between these population structures, instead it showed continuity between people. This, as Johann Gottfried von Herder had suggested, was because human variation will not succumb to an imposed artificial taxonomy, but instead reflects history. Rosenberg s paper is often used by racists to erroneously claim that there are indeed five genetically distinct races. In fact, it does no such thing, and this is obvious in the data: when the clusters are set at two, Africa, Europe and West Asia are lumped together as one and the rest of the world as another. There is no a priori reason to settle on five clusters as being the definitive categorisation of humans, and deciding to do so because it corresponds with an earlier yet debunked classification is simply affirming pre-existing biases. When you increase the cluster number to six, the next distinct group to emerge are the Kalasha. They are a northern Pakistani tribe of around 4,000 people who marry almost exclusively within their own ethnic population, which is tucked away in relative isolation in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Though these people are somewhat genetically distinct, not even the most committed racist describes the Kalasha as a sixth human race.
Rutherford 2020: the ability to identify different vertical stripes within Spain does not mean that those vertical stripes are meaningfully different
Rutherford 2020: the ability to identify different vertical stripes within Spain does not mean that those vertical stripes are meaningfully different: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Bear in mind that all of these studies rely on complex statistical analyses on ever increasing datasets, and that they are based on genotype, not phenotype. What that means is that even if the differences and similarities in DNA make useful proxies for predicting the populations from which they were sampled, they don t necessarily correlate with the traditional categories of race, as determined primarily by pigmentation. This type of analysis is totally valid, and is the basis for studying human history, migration and genetic variation between populations and people. We could keep increasing the number of clusters and find ever more precise similarities and overlaps. When even higher resolution genetic mapping was applied to the people of Britain in 2015, families who had lived in Devon for multiple generations could be distinguished from the people of Cornwall, and when these precise differences were plotted on a map the boundary was the River Tamar, which for centuries has effectively been the county line. When the same technique was applied to the Iberian Peninsula in 2019, it showed vertical stripes of similarity, revealing that Spain s history meant that people are fractionally but measurably more similar in a north south axis than they are east to west. Are they functionally different? Of course not, it s simply that we have become so good at identifying the genetic histories of populations that we can pick up these wispy, diaphanous traces of similarity and difference. We could eventually cluster all humans into 7 billion individuals, because every human genome is unique.
Racial Purity Is Meaningless
Rutherford 2020: ancient people loved fucking, and they bred widely
Rutherford 2020: ancient people loved fucking, and they bred widely: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
People have moved around the world throughout history and had sex wherever and whenever they could. Sometimes these are big moves in short times. More often people are largely static over a few generations, and that can feel like a geographical and cultural anchor. Nevertheless, every Nazi has Jewish ancestors. Every white supremacist has Middle Eastern ancestors. Every racist has African, Indian, Chinese, Native American, aboriginal Australian ancestors, as well as everyone else, and not just in the sense that humankind is an African species in deep prehistory, but at a minimum from classical times, and probably much more recently. Racial purity is a pure fantasy. For humans, there are no purebloods, only mongrels enriched by the blood of multitudes.
Rutherford 2020: direct genetic inheritance is fundamentally different than ancestral lineage
Rutherford 2020: direct genetic inheritance is fundamentally different than ancestral lineage: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Basic biology tells us that we inherit half of our genome from our mothers and half from our fathers. This is a truth universally acknowledged for all humans through time: a new whole genome is forged at the conception of a child. But the process of genetic shuffling that occurs in the formation of sperm and egg guarantees that each one of those two cells is unique and carries a unique half genome (therefore a unique half is lost in subsequent generations, should that sperm or egg be successful). Which means that not the same half gets transferred each generation. Over the generations, descendants begin to shed the DNA of their actual ancestors. The amount that vanishes is cumulatively huge: you carry DNA from only half of your ancestors eleven generations back. Genealogy and genetic genealogy are not perfectly matched, and progressively grow apart as we go back in time. It is therefore possible that you are genetically unrelated to people from whom you are actually descended as recently as the middle of the eighteenth century. This is a point that further undermines the appropriation of genetics as a means of asserting membership of a tribe, race or other identity.
Against Adaptationism
Rutherford 2020: "adaptationism" assumes that different genes frequencies in different populations must have been selected for; but this is an invalid assumption, due to genetic drift and the neutral hypothesis (which allows a large degree of divergence in frequency of genes with no strong effect, among other facts)
Rutherford 2020: "adaptationism" assumes that different genes frequencies in different populations must have been selected for; but this is an invalid assumption, due to genetic drift and the neutral hypothesis (which allows a large degree of divergence in frequency of genes with no strong effect, among other facts): https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
These are fractionally more sophisticated versions of the evolutionary crime we call adaptationism* the assumption that natural selection is responsible for specific human behaviours, rather than happenstance or processes that are neither positive nor negative, but have simply drifted into existence. In the genomic age we are capable of actually seeing the parts of the genome where selection has taken place, and there are population-specific mutations that indicate positive selection of particular genes as adaptations to the local environment. Pigmentation, specific diets, resistance to diseases (such as malaria) and other traits are demonstrably local adaptations that are part of humankind s success in colonising the world. Adaptationism is an error because in many cases it results in untestable hypotheses, but ones that are appealing because they sound superficially convincing blacks are good sprinters because of selection during slavery; Jews are intellectually gifted because their history of persecution enriched genes associated with brains.
Brief Summary of How Gwas Works and Why It Can't Alone Demonstrate Causality
Rutherford 2020: GWAS examines the aggregate effect on a measured phenotype of every gene, which enables us to identify genes with high influence and to estimate the overall summative effect of genes on phenotype
Rutherford 2020: GWAS examines the aggregate effect on a measured phenotype of every gene, which enables us to identify genes with high influence and to estimate the overall summative effect of genes on phenotype: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Understanding population genetics, however, is important for scientific arguments about race, so buckle up, and I ll be brief. For really complex human traits, where thousands of minuscule differences seem to have small but cumulative effects, aggregating them helps us pool the genetic influence. This is known as a polygenic risk score (PRS). It s a metric that allows us to estimate the total genomic underpinning of a trait: when the outcome of a GWAS is many genes, totting up their effect is handy. It is a powerful instrument, and a valuable addition to the scientist s toolkit. Polygenic scores help us to understand the genetics of any human trait, including complex diseases, though not yet with enough detail to warrant clinical intervention. GWAS and PRS are truly brilliant tools that have utterly transformed the field of human genetics. That does not mean that they are infallible as tools, nor that they are always the most appropriate tools.
Rutherford 2020: polygenic scores (PGS or PRS) merely demonstrate that a specific gene is *associated with* a specific phenotype, not that that gene *causes* or *helps to cause* that phenotype
Rutherford 2020: polygenic scores (PGS or PRS) merely demonstrate that a specific gene is *associated with* a specific phenotype, not that that gene *causes* or *helps to cause* that phenotype: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Polygenic scores potently affirm that intelligence is heritable within a population. But this is a tool that is not particularly adept at dissecting the differences between populations. So when we see different IQ scores in different populations, and we know that the heritability of intelligence is high (more than 50 per cent), that doesn t mean necessarily that the different DNA variants account for the differences between the populations. It would be perfectly possible for two populations with different sets of genetic differences to get the same IQ scores. Take height again, as it is easier to measure and better understood: the many differences in DNA that go some way towards accounting for the differences we see in heights in a population are not genes for height, only ones associated with height. We don t know what those genetic signatures do, whether they are influencing height or just are physically linked to genes that are important for height, and are going along for the ride due to the way DNA is chopped up when sperm or eggs are made. We also don t know if the genetic differences are dependent on the local environment to drive the phenotype and make the average taller. We might expect to see different genetic associations in Europe compared to Japan when looking at height, but without knowing what those genes do, we can t know whether they have drifted into being, are significant, or are really meaningful in different environments, with different food or nutrition. These are not questions that this type of genetic study can answer well. GWAS are important and powerful for finding genes of relevance within a population but not between different populations. This, I will not dispute, is difficult technical science and statistical analysis. But it is important in the ongoing discussions about intelligence and race. We get better at forensically unpicking groups of people, and the tools become easier to deploy. That doesn t mean the tools are the right ones for the job. Scientists studying human variation, and journalists and readers need to be wary of drawing wrong conclusions from right results. Since the birth of the GWAS, results have frequently been vastly misreported: weak correlations claimed as causes, typically in the format scientists discover the gene for X . With the development of the polygenic score on top of the GWAS, we run the risk of further overinterpretation, or outright error.
Rutherford 2020: the proper question for scientific racists and hereditarians is not whether a specific gene correlates with a specific outcome, but whether evolution selected for that gene -- without large differential selection, we would not expect large differences in genes, just lots of random genetic drift
Rutherford 2020: the proper question for scientific racists and hereditarians is not whether a specific gene correlates with a specific outcome, but whether evolution selected for that gene -- without large differential selection, we would not expect large differences in genes, just lots of random genetic drift: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
When trying to account for disparities in intelligence, we not only need to bear in mind the limitations of the tools to hand, but also the reasons we attribute to our observations. In this specific case of intellectual performance, the question is: has biological evolution via selection natural, artificial or both driven the difference we can see between populations?
Rutherford 2020: the overrepresentation of black or African people in certain sports does not neatly line up with the predictions that African people have more "explosive" energy
Rutherford 2020: the overrepresentation of black or African people in certain sports does not neatly line up with the predictions that African people have more "explosive" energy: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Let us speculate, generously. Maybe selection during slavery is the biological difference between over-representation of African American athletic success compared to African. Let s leave aside the lack of support for that idea from generational time, and the absence of evidence for selection in the genome, as mentioned above. Let s pretend that the genes being selected relate to power and strength, and by extension, that translates into a sprinting advantage, even though slave breeding programmes were not for fast running. Why then do Eastern Europeans dominate weightlifting, and are absent in sprinting, when slavery selection for power would be perfectly attuned to this sport, much more so than running? Why do African Americans dominate in boxing, but not wrestling? Why is it that a game such as squash, which also requires explosive energy and power, is dominated by athletes from India, Pakistan, Egypt and Great Britain, and has never featured a successful person of African descent? Why are there no African American sprint cyclists?
Rutherford 2020: in particular, we should expect that African people would dominate tennis through explosive energy -- but sports are mostly a social phenomenon, and one that black people have been excluded from until recently
Rutherford 2020: in particular, we should expect that African people would dominate tennis through explosive energy -- but sports are mostly a social phenomenon, and one that black people have been excluded from until recently: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Tennis is a sport requiring strength and explosive energy, yet people of West African or any African descent are largely absent from this sport of privilege. With twenty-three Grand Slam titles (and an additional sixteen in doubles), the dominance of Serena Williams in modern tennis puts her as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, and indeed one of the greatest sportspeople of all time. Is Williams success a result of her ancestry? Yes, in a narrow sense, in that her assumed genetic make-up bestows part of her advantage. But the question is this: is her ancestry the defining characteristic of her success? That a black woman is a true great is partially a reflection of the lowering of prejudice and raising of opportunity in the modern era. By being one of the greatest tennis players of all time, just like Usain Bolt is the fastest runner ever recorded, they are already wonderfully freakish outliers and poor representatives of normal humans. Are they outliers genetically? For sprinting, there is a notable and blindingly obvious fact that is forever ignored. African American, Caribbean and African Canadian athletes have dominated sprinting for forty years, all descended from the enslaved from West Africa. Only five white men have competed in the Olympic 100 metres finals since the starting pistol was fired in the 1980 race, and the gold and bronze in that race are the only medals not won by black 100 metres sprinters. In that same time, the number of African men in the finals is also five. This includes two medals, both won by Frankie Fredericks from Namibia, a country that is not considered West Africa (rather it is south-west Africa); only one of the five Africans logged a time less than 10 seconds. By this metric, African men are precisely as successful as white men. The transatlantic slave trade also imported millions of West African women and men to South America. The number of South Americans of any ancestry to have competed in the 100 metres finals? Zero. The point is this: elite sprinters in the Olympics are not a dataset on which a statistician could draw any satisfactory conclusion. Yet it is precisely the data on which an extremely popular stereotype is based. The idea of black athleticism in sprinting is drawn from a hugely skewed and fatally flawed sample, one which due to the relative absence of West African sprinters doesn t even support its own hypothesis. If people of West African ancestry have a genetic advantage, why are there few West African sprinters, when slavery does not account for the difference?
Rutherford 2020: there's an analogy to the sport towns of Jamaica, Kenya, and Ethiopia: a great tennis club in the city of Reading
Rutherford 2020: there's an analogy to the sport towns of Jamaica, Kenya, and Ethiopia: a great tennis club in the city of Reading: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
*There is a real equivalent for British sport that makes the same point though with somewhat less glamour. The best table tennis players the UK has ever produced came from one street in the city of Reading. Is there something special about the people of Reading? No, but there was a very good table tennis club there.
Rutherford 2020: Jewish people may have been overrepresented in certain jobs -- but those jobs were not intensely cognitively demanding, and any stronger claims demand strong evidence
Rutherford 2020: Jewish people may have been overrepresented in certain jobs -- but those jobs were not intensely cognitively demanding, and any stronger claims demand strong evidence: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Though antisemitism is thousands of years old, and Jewish associations with intellectual pursuits are centuries old, much of the current discourse on supposedly innate Jewish cognitive abilities stem from a single study in 2006. In a paper that has had significant influence and initiated much scrutiny Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy and Henry Harpending* suggested that the history of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe had the effect of enriching genes associated with intellect. They propose a number of factors unique to Jewish (and specifically Ashkenazi) history that created these favourable conditions for intellectual selection. These include social behaviours, such as endogamy, meaning that they mostly interbred, which created a gene pool which is favourable to natural selection. And they had jobs in which increased IQ strongly favoured economic success, in contrast with other populations, who were mostly peasant farmers . Winnowing through persecution is another suggestion in the paper somehow, acts of oppression and tyranny resulted in survival of the smartest. The authors, however, are clear in the paper that they can t explain how that would work, as no such effect is seen in other persecuted people. I find it most strange that you include such guesswork in a scientific study. In response to the assertion that professions involving commerce require high levels of intellect, I am unaware of strong evidence that success in business correlates with significantly above average intelligence. Cochran et al. describe moneylending and other forms of commerce that are presumed to be the preserve of Jews as cognitively demanding jobs and that the Ashkenazi niche was so specifically demanding of accounting and management skills . Presenting this as evidence also sounds pretty sketchy to me. Medieval moneylending is not exactly rocket science and it s definitely not medieval brain surgery. They also cite specific biological factors and physiological effects that could increase intelligence . In the ancient days of 2006, we knew less than we do today about neuroscience, and how biochemistry in cells relates to thought and action but not that much less. Neuroscience is a vibrant field, but the truth is that we still really have very little idea of how neuronal growth and connectivity relates to cognition. If I have succeeded in convincing you that genetics is bewilderingly complicated, apply that to the development of the physical brain and the esoteric nature of thought, and you face one of the great frontiers in science. The suggestion is that some disease genes have specific effects on the growth of neurons, in a way that might enhance IQ. But this reflects a profoundly simplistic view of neurological development.
Rutherford 2020: Jewish domination of moneylending came to an end in the 15th century; although more Jews per person than Christians may have been moneylenders, it was a very small proportion of both
Rutherford 2020: Jewish domination of moneylending came to an end in the 15th century; although more Jews per person than Christians may have been moneylenders, it was a very small proportion of both: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
Notionally a positive attribute, an evolutionary history that has fomented intellectual and commercial success is a major part of the standard and longstanding tropes of antisemitism. But the argument is riven with antisemitic tropes that are ahistorical. Moneylending is a common stereotype, not least because of Shakespeare s Shylock. In fact, moneylending was a trade that was extremely limited in time and space within Jewish culture in Europe, and by the end of the fifteenth century had largely vanished from Jewish populations. Yet the implication of Cochran et al. s scientific speculation is that business and financial acumen has driven the evolution of Jewish brains.
Rutherford 2020: the genes hypothesized by breathless adaptationists to cause greater Jewish intelligence have not yet even shown a correlation in GWAS to date
Rutherford 2020: the genes hypothesized by breathless adaptationists to cause greater Jewish intelligence have not yet even shown a correlation in GWAS to date: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
They did not know this at the time of writing their paper, but we now know that the genes associated with intellectual capability are myriad, and of very small but cumulative effect pixels on a colossal screen. Of the genes identified so far (and remember that while we know these genes are important, we don t know what they do, and therefore why they are important), many are expressed in the brain (as indeed are thousands of genes), and therefore may well have a direct effect on intellect. There are databases that list hundreds of GWAS results and thousands of genes. You can enter a gene and ask the database to pull out studies that indicate the gene is associated with any one of dozens of types of trait, from height to mortality to bones, as well as cognitive and neurological. I checked the current databases for the disease genes that Cochran et al. suggest might be driving selection for Jewish smarts, to see if, at the time of writing, they associated with brains or cognitive abilities. The result? Not one of them does.
Rutherford 2020: it's simpler to suggest that culture causes high Jewish educational and economic performance
Rutherford 2020: it's simpler to suggest that culture causes high Jewish educational and economic performance: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228315214 https://u1lib.org/book/5406846/1a86f7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418850379518705675/736771760371793940/rutherford2020.pdf
The evidence for selection of genes for intellect in Jews is weak. Is it not simply more scientifically parsimonious to suggest that a culture that values scholarship is more likely to produce scholars? The immense intellectual value placed on the traditions of yeshivot Talmudic scholarship began in the Middle Ages and continues to this day, and is arguably without parallel. Just like a society that champions long-distance running as a pathway to economic and cultural success, with highly successful runners already in place, a multitude will chase them.
Alternative Building
Wright 1996 in Roemer 1996: why presenting an alternative is important: demonstrates which ways to move and provides the social-political motivation to move there
Wright 1996 in Roemer 1996: why presenting an alternative is important: demonstrates which ways to move and provides the social-political motivation to move there: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246257676 https://u1lib.org/book/21313718/5cc6e1 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982123364468551710/roemer1996.pdf
The Real Utopias Project embraces this tension between dreams and practice. It is founded on the belief that what is pragmatically possible is not fixed independently of our imaginations, but is itself shaped by our visions. Self-fulfilling prophecies are powerful forces in history, and while it may be polyannish to say where there is a will there is a way , it is certainly true that without will many ways become impossible. Nurturing clear-sighted understandings of what it would take to create social institutions free of oppression is part of creating a political will for radical social changes to reduce oppression. A vital belief in a utopian destination may be necessary to motivate people to leave on the journey from the status quo in the first place, even though the actual destination may fall short of the utopian ideal.
Provisional Utopia
Wright 1996 in Roemer 1996: why provisional utopia is important: it links incremental and utopian, small and grand
Wright 1996 in Roemer 1996: why provisional utopia is important: it links incremental and utopian, small and grand: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246257676 https://u1lib.org/book/21313718/5cc6e1 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982123364468551710/roemer1996.pdf
The Real Utopias Project is an attempt at sustaining and deepening serious discussion of radical alternatives to existing institutions. The objective is to focus on specific proposals for the fundamental redesign of basic social institutions rather than on either vague, abstract formulations of grand designs, or on small reforms of existing practices.
Roemer 1996: it's too soon to tell
Roemer 1996: it's too soon to tell: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246257676 https://u1lib.org/book/21313718/5cc6e1 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982123364468551710/roemer1996.pdf
When Zhou Enlai was asked to comment on the consequences of the French revolution, he replied, It s too soon to tell . I have argued that the prudent social scientist should likewise remain agnostic about what appears to be capitalism s trouncing defeat of socialism in the late twentieth century.
Roemer 1996: the fastest growers of the 20th century were East Asian development states, not neoliberal capitalist states; the experiment is polluted
Roemer 1996: the fastest growers of the 20th century were East Asian development states, not neoliberal capitalist states; the experiment is polluted: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246257676 https://u1lib.org/book/21313718/5cc6e1 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982123364468551710/roemer1996.pdf
The real-life experiments are severely polluted, from a scientific viewpoint: the most dynamic economies of the 1960s onwards (Japan and the East Asian tigers) have used markets with a good dose of planning, and the Communist economies not only had planning and the absence of markets but also political dictatorship, a background condition an experimental designer would like to be able to alter.
The Theoretical Evidence Is Unclear
Roemer 1996: thick markets (closer to Post-Keynesian view) vs thin markets (closer to neoclassical view)
Roemer 1996: thick markets (closer to Post-Keynesian view) vs thin markets (closer to neoclassical view): http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246257676 https://u1lib.org/book/21313718/5cc6e1 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/982123364468551710/roemer1996.pdf
It is not correct to characterize modern capitalist firms as instruments by which entrepreneurs capitalize their talents. The profits of firms are distributed to many owners, who have no direct control over decisions which affect profitability, and who are in large part not responsible for firms successes or failures, Firms are run by hired agents of their owners: this suggests that hired agents could as well run firms in a socialist economy, one in which profits would be distributed even more diffusely than they are in the large capitalist corporation. Indeed the mechanisms that have evolved (or been designed) under capitalism that enable owners to control management can be transported to a socialist framework. In contrast to the thin Hayekian and neoclassical views, which see markets as a minimal structure organizing competition among talented individuals, the modern thick view sees markets as operating within the context of complex, man-made institutions, through which all individual contributions become pasteurized and refined. These two views of the market are, I suggest, substantially different, and the latter thick view, unlike the former, is amenable to the coexistence of markets and socialism.
Toy Model Graphical Summary
Roemer 1996: a toy model summary of coupon socialism in 3 periods
Civilization as European
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
The subtext is that history is over, the fittest have survived, and the victors have been decided. But of course, history is never over, and it is always more complicated than we think. In Sir Hans Sloane s time, accounts of the past were scribbled hastily, without the benefit of knowing about the remarkable Indus Valley civilization more than five thousand years old. We still know relatively little about this civilization, except that it had sophisticated cities and conducted trade using precise weights and measures. Sloane could have known little of the more recent Aztec and Inca empires in South America, which upon their discovery by Europeans destabilized the very meaning of civilization by proving that highly sophisticated societies emerged independently elsewhere. They came as such a shock that some to this day still believe their cities were the work of aliens.
Racialism Justifies Racism
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Every society that happens to be dominant comes to think of itself as being the best, deep down. The more powerful we humans become, the more our power begins to be framed as natural as well as cultural. We paint our enemies as ugly foreigners and our subordinates as inferior. We invent hierarchies, give meaning to our own racial categories. One day, five thousand years forward, in another museum in another nation, these could be European or American bones encased in glass, what were once considered advanced societies replaced by new ones. History is never over. No place or people has a claim on superiority. Race is the counter-argument. Race is at its heart the belief that we are born different, deep inside our bodies, perhaps even in character and intellect, as well as in outward appearance. It s the notion that groups of people have certain innate qualities that not only are visible at the surface of their skins but also run down into their innate capacities, that perhaps even help define the passage of progress, the success and failure of the nations our ancestors came from.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
The idea of race didn t make people treat other people as subhuman. They were already treated as subhuman before race was invoked. But once it was invoked, the subjugation took on a new force.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Haier s comments betray just how much this field remains plagued by dark politics. I can t help but recall the nineteenth-century race scientists who jumped to biological explanations for the inequality they saw in the world, who thought other races had been doomed to failure by nature because their brains were too small or their temperaments too weak. Confronted by slavery and colonialism, they skimmed over history and culture, preferring instead to look to biology for justification for this kind of exploitation. When researchers like Meisenberg today link economic development to intelligence, they imply that the vast inequality between the world s richest and poorest countries is rooted not just in the imbalance of power or historical circumstance, but in the innate weaknesses of the populations themselves. Racial injustice and inequality, in their minds, isn t injustice or inequality at all. It s there because the racial hierarchy is real.
Indigenous Australian Aboriginal Agriculture
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
There was certainly little respect for the remarkable systems of understanding and land management that indigenous Australians had cultivated over millennia, explains Griffiths. For thousands of years the land has been embedded with stories and songs, cultivated with digging sticks and fire and by hand. While people have lived in Australia, there s been enormous environmental change as well as social change, political change, cultural change. Their lives have never been static. In his 2014 book Dark Emu, Black Seeds writer Bruce Pascoe argues, as other scholars have done, that this engagement with the land was so sophisticated and successful, including the harvesting of crops and fish, that it amounted to farming and agriculture.
Racism Among Early Enlightenment Thinkers
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
When you look at these giants of the eighteenth century, Kant and Hegel, they were terribly racist. They were unbelievably racist! Kant stated in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime in 1764, The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling. When he met a quick-witted carpenter, he quickly dismissed him with the observation that this fellow was quite black from head to foot, a clear proof that what he said was stupid. While a few Enlightenment thinkers did resist the idea of a racial hierarchy, many, including the French philosopher Voltaire and the English thinker David Hume, saw no contradiction between the values of liberty and fraternity and their belief that nonwhites were innately inferior to whites.
Views on Neanderthals Through History: Idiots, Until Europeans Realized They Were European
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Fairly soon after it was found that it was modern-day Europeans who have the closer association to Neanderthals not, as it turned out, Aboriginal Australians the image of the Neanderthal underwent a dramatic makeover. When their remains were first discovered in 1856, the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel had suggested naming them Homo stupidus. But now these same Neanderthals, once the dictionary definition of simple-minded, loutish, uncivilized thugs, became oddly rehabilitated.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Neanderthals are romanticized, John Shea tells me. They re no longer around, and we don t have a great deal of evidence about what they were like or how they lived, which means they can be whatever we want them to be. We re free to project good qualities, things we admire, and the ideal on them. In reality, whatever they were like, he says, The interbreeding thing is more like a symbolic thing for us than it is of evolutionary consequence. Yet researchers haven t been able to help themselves from looking for evolutionary consequences. One team of scientists claimed that the tiny peppering of Neanderthal DNA may have given Europeans different immune systems from Africans. Another published paper linked Neanderthal DNA to a whole host of human differences, including skin tone and hair color, height, sleeping patterns, mood, and smoking status. An American research group went so far as to try to link the amount of Neanderthal DNA people have with the shape of their brain, implying that non-Africans may have some mental differences from Africans as a result of their interbreeding ancestors. For more than a century the word Neanderthal had been synonymous with low intelligence. In the space of a decade, once the genetic link to modern Europeans was suspected, that all changed. In the popular press, there was a flurry of excitement about our hitherto undervalued relatives. Headlines proclaimed that we haven t been giving Neanderthals enough credit (Popular Science), that they were too smart for their own good (The Telegraph), that humans didn t outsmart the Neanderthals (Washington Post). Meanwhile a piece in the New Yorker whimsically reflected on their apparent everyday similarity to humans, including the finding that they may have suffered from psoriasis. Poor things, they even itched like us. With each new discovery, the distance between them and us seems to narrow, wrote the author. In the popular imagination, the family tree had gained a new member. In January 2017 the New York Times ran a story headlined Neanderthals Were People, Too and asked, Why did science get them so wrong? This was indeed the big question. If the definition of people had always included archaic humans, then why should Neanderthals so suddenly and so generously be accepted as people now? And not just accepted, but elevated to the celebrity status of sadly deceased genius cousin? It wasn t all that long ago that scientists had been reluctant to accept the full humanity even of Aboriginal Australians. Gail Beck s family had been denied their culture; treated in their own nation as unworthy of survival; their children ripped from their parents to be abused by strangers. In the nineteenth century Aboriginal Australians had been lumped together with Neanderthals as evolutionary dead ends, both destined for extinction. But now that common ground had been found between Europeans and Neanderthals, now we were all people! Now we had found our common ground!
On Darwin and Racialism
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
In 1871 the naturalist and biologist Charles Darwin published The Descent of Man, sweeping away these religious creation myths and framing the human species as having one common ancestor many millennia ago and as having evolved slowly like all other life on earth. After studying humans across the world, their emotions and expressions, he wrote, It seems improbable to me in the highest degree that so much similarity, or rather identity of structure, could have been acquired by independent means. We are too alike in our basic responses, our smiles and tears, our blushes, to have different origins. On this point alone Darwin might have settled the race debate. He demonstrated that we could only have evolved from shared origins, that human races didn t emerge separately. And on a personal level, this was important to him. Darwin s family included two influential abolitionists, his grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood. He himself had seen the brutality of slavery firsthand on his travels. When the naturalist Louis Agassiz, in the United States, spoke about human races as having separate origins, Darwin wrote disparagingly in a letter that this must have come as comfort to slaveholding Southerners. A central tenet of the antislavery movement was that humanity is one, that we share the same blood.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
But the abolitionists conviction wasn t the last word on the subject. Darwin still struggled with the notion of equality when it came to race. Like Abraham Lincoln, who was born on the same day as Darwin, he opposed slavery but was also ambiguous on the question of whether black Africans and Australians were strictly equal to white Europeans. He left open the possibility that, even though we could all be traced back to a common ancestor, populations may have diverged since then, producing levels of difference. As the British anthropologist Tim Ingold notes, Darwin saw gradations between the highest men of the highest races and the lowest savages. He suggested, for example, that the children of savages have a stronger tendency to protrude their lips when they sulk than European children, because, similar to chimps, they are closer to the primordial condition. The historian Gregory Radick at the University of Leeds notes that Darwin, even though he made such a bold and original contribution to the idea of racial unity, also seemed to be unembarrassed by his belief in an evolutionary hierarchy. Men were above women, and white races were above others.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Mixed with the politics of the day, this was devastating. The uncertainty around the biological facts left more than enough room for ideology to be mixed with real science, leading to the fabrication of fresh racial myths. Brown and yellow races were a bit higher up, some argued, not unlike Darwin did. Whites were the most evolved and by implication, the most civilized and the most human. What was seen as the success of the white races became couched in the language of the survival of the fittest, which carried the implication that the most primitive peoples, as they were described, would inevitably lose the struggle for survival as the human race evolved. Ingold argues that even Darwin himself began to frame evolution as an imperialist doctrine of progress, rather than seeing it as acting to make a species better adapted to its particular environment. In bringing the rise of science and civilisation within the compass of the same evolutionary process that had made humans out of apes, and apes out of creatures lower in the scale, Darwin was forced to attribute what he saw as the ascendancy of reason to hereditary endowment, writes Ingold. For the theory to work, there had to be significant differences in such endowment between tribes [and] nations. For hunter-gatherers to live so differently from city dwellers, the logic goes, it must be that their brains had not yet progressed to the same stage of evolution.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Adding fuel to this bonfire of flawed thinking (after all, we now know that the brains of hunter-gatherers are no different from those of anyone else) were Darwin s supporters, some of whom happened to be fervent racists. The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, known as Darwin s bulldog, argued that not all humans were equal. In an 1865 essay on the emancipation of black slaves, he wrote that the average white was bigger brained, asserting, The highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins. For Huxley, freeing slaves was a morally good thing for white men to do, but the raw facts of biology made the idea of equal rights for women as well as for black people little more than an illogical delusion. In Germany, too, Darwin s loudest cheerleader was Ernst Haeckel, who taught zoology at the University of Jena beginning in 1862 and was a proud nationalist. He liked to draw connections between black Africans and primates, seeing them as a kind of living missing link in the evolutionary chain that connected apes to Europeans.
Link Between Oppression, Inferiority, and Ease of Genetic Explanations
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
People are more readily perceived as inferior by nature when they are already seen as oppressed, write the American scholars Karen Fields and Barbara Fields in their 2012 book Racecraft. They explain how a sense of inevitability gets attached to a social routine until it comes to be seen as natural. The idea of race didn t make people treat other people as subhuman. They were already treated as subhuman before race was invoked. But once it was invoked, the subjugation took on a new force. Something about treating human difference as a science gave it a peculiar quality. Observing humans turned the humans being observed into strange beasts. While maintaining the unimpeachable impression of scientific objectivity, somehow the scientist himself always turned out to be the gold standard of beauty and intelligence. His own race was safe in his hands. The German naturalist Johann Blumenbach idealized the Caucasian race, to which he belonged, but described Ethiopians as being bandy-legged. If legs were different, there was never any question that it was Caucasians who might be the unusual ones. The creatures caged in the human zoos were those who had failed to reach the ideal of white European physical and mental perfection.
Galton and Pearson
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Galton considered himself an expert on human difference, on the finer qualities that make a person better or worse. If not quite the genius that Darwin was, he certainly aspired to be. I find that talent is transmitted by inheritance in a very remarkable degree, he had once written in an essay titled Hereditary Character and Talent. His logic, drawing on his cousin s theories of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, was that a race of people could be improved if the most intelligent were encouraged to reproduce and the stupidest were not the same way you might breed a fatter cow or a redder apple. Some saw it as a way of artificially speeding up human evolution, driving the race closer to mental and physical perfection. As an example, he drew on the fact that brilliant writers were often related to other brilliant writers. He noted that of 605 notable men who lived between 1453 and 1853, one in six were related to another member of the same group. The ingredients for greatness must be heritable, he reasoned, choosing to overlook that their being notable might be a product of wealth and connections. If a twentieth part of the cost and pains were spent in measures for the improvement of the human race that is spent on the improvement of the breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy of genius might we not create! Galton dreamed of a utopia of highly bred superpeople, and he made creating such a perfect society his lifelong mission.
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The first challenge would be to measure people s abilities, to build up a bank of data about who exactly were the most intelligent and who the least. In 1904 he convinced the University of London to set up the world s first Eugenics Record Office at 50 Gower Street, dedicated to measuring human differences, in the hope of understanding what kind of people Britain might want more of. University College, London, jumped at the chance, replying to his request within a week. After a short time it became known as the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics.
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The word eugenics is no longer used around here. Long after Galton s death, his laboratory was renamed the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment; it is now housed in the Darwin Building. And this is where Subhadra Das steps in. Among the vast collection of objects she is responsible for at the university is Galton s personal archive, which contains his personal photographs, equipment, and papers documents that track the genesis and development of eugenics. Das also looks after objects that belonged to Galton s close collaborator, the mathematician Karl Pearson, who became the first professor of national eugenics in 1911, after Galton died. Pearson s greatest contribution, the thing that people remember him for, is founding the discipline of statistics. A lot of work on that was done with Galton. Galton, if you re going to bring his science down to anything in particular, is a statistician, Das tells me.
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You have to call Galton a racist because the work that he did is fundamental to the story of scientific racism. So not only is he a racist, he is part of the way we invented racism, and the way that we think about it.
Racism in China and Japan
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In the first decades of the twentieth century, all over the world, eugenics began to be conflated with old nineteenth-century ideas about race. In Japan, during the Meiji period, the thinker and politician Kat Hiroyuki used Darwinism to make the point that there was a struggle for survival between different nations. In China in 1905, the revolutionary Wang Jingwei argued that a state made up of a single race was stronger than one comprising multiple races. Other Chinese politicians advocated sterilization as a means of human selection, and racial intermarriage to produce children with whiter skins. Historian Yuehtsen Juliette Chung has noted that during this time, China seemed to accept passively the notion of race as the West understood it.
Two Concepts of Modern Racism
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Two parallel ideologies had by now firmly intertwined in the minds of racists. One, the decades-old concept of the existence of a superior race. The second, informed by eugenics, that unless checked, inferior races would outbreed superior ones. Human variation had gone from being, before the eighteenth century, a jelly-like set of loose generalizations to a hard matter of progress and struggle. Grant s work was referenced by the Ku Klux Klan. It also became one of the inspirations behind the Immigration Act of 1924, which set quotas according to nationality aimed at decreasing immigration from southern and eastern Europe, including Italy, Greece, and Poland, as well as effectively barring anyone from Asia.
Explaining Lewotin 1972
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Lewontin s findings have been reinforced over time. An influential 2002 study published in Science by a team of scientists led by geneticist Noah Rosenberg, then at the University of Southern California, took genetic data from just over a thousand people around the world and showed that indeed as much as 95 percent of variation is within the major population groups. Statistically this means that although I look nothing like the white British woman who lives next door to me in my apartment building, it s perfectly possible for me to have more in common genetically with her than with my Indian-born neighbor who lives downstairs. Being of the same race doesn t necessarily mean we are genetically more similar.
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The next few decades would be crucial to dismantling the idea that race was real and to proving Montagu right. In 1972 a landmark paper exploring the true breadth of human biological diversity appeared in the annual edition of Evolutionary Biology, written by a geneticist, Richard Lewontin, who later became a professor at Harvard University. Dividing the planet up into seven human groups, based roughly on old-fashioned racial categories, Lewontin investigated just how much genetic diversity there was within these populations compared with the genetic diversity between them. What he found was that there was far more variation among people of the same race than between supposedly separate races; he concluded that around 85 percent of all the genetic diversity we see is located within local populations 93 percent if you widen the net to continental populations. In total, around 90 percent of the variation lies roughly within the old racial categories, not between them. There has been at least one critique of Lewontin s statistical method since then, but geneticists today overwhelmingly agree that although they may be able to use genomic data to roughly categorize people by the continent their ancestors came from (something we can often do equally well by sight), by far the biggest chunk of human genetic difference is indeed found within populations.
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Lewontin s findings have been reinforced over time. An influential 2002 study published in Science by a team of scientists led by geneticist Noah Rosenberg, then at the University of Southern California, took genetic data from just over a thousand people around the world and showed that indeed as much as 95 percent of variation is within the major population groups. Statistically this means that although I look nothing like the white British woman who lives next door to me in my apartment building, it s perfectly possible for me to have more in common genetically with her than with my Indian-born neighbor who lives downstairs. Being of the same race doesn t necessarily mean we are genetically more similar.
On Clines
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All of this didn t happen in big clumps or clusters, but rather like more of a mesh, as people mated with those they encountered on the way, sometimes traveling further away and sometimes moving back. If everyone in the world had their genomes sequenced, says Jobling, you wouldn t find hard borders between them, but gradients, with each small community blending into the next, the way hills blend into valleys. The racial categories we are used to seeing on census forms don t map onto the true picture of human variation.
Mankind Quarterly
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In the final years before his death, when few scientific journals would touch his work, Gates decided to take matters into his own hands. If they wouldn t publish him, he would publish himself. He and a handful of like-minded researchers, some on the very darkest margins of science including the former Nazi scientist Otmar von Verschuer and a British eugenicist, Roger Pearson, in 1960, established a journal of their own. Their aims were simple: to challenge what they saw as a politically correct, left-wing conspiracy around race and bring back some scientific objectivity. (Von Verschuer died in a car accident in 1969, soon after Gates. Pearson, the last of the group still alive, aged ninety in 2018, declined to give me an interview for reasons of ill health.) They named their brave new enterprise the Mankind Quarterly.
Deep Involvement of the Pioneer Fund
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At the time, although the story made some corners of the national press, it wasn t major headline news. It was largely dismissed, I would say, by people who in retrospect would probably admit were mistaken to write it off, says Hurt. Looking back on the case, in the context of today s politics, with the rise of far-right groups in Europe and the US, and nationalism more globally, he believes that what they uncovered should have served as a warning. Scott was just one individual, but he operated within a larger network of intellectuals opposed to desegregation, including Roger Pearson. What surprised me was how quickly and efficiently these groups worked, adds Mehler. You would think it would be fringe people, and that they would remain on the fringe, and they would have difficulty raising funds and making contacts. That wasn t true at all. What surprised me was how quickly Roger Pearson went from Calcutta, India, to Washington, DC, to Ronald Reagan.
Human Biodiversity
creator
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When Marks had talked about human biodiversity, he meant the superficial variations we see among individuals, right across the species not variation among human groups. There isn t really room for three, or four, or five biologically distinct kinds of people, he tells me. He certainly didn t expect to see people on the list reinforcing old-fashioned racial stereotypes of the kind that had long been debunked. That school of racism was long dead, he assumed. Yet here on this email list, something strange was happening. Observing the conversations that Sailer steered through the group, Marks noticed the term human biodiversity being used differently from the way he had originally intended. Members were using it to refer to deep differences between human population groups.
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When Sailer talked about human biodiversity, he didn t appear to be using the phrase in a politically neutral way, but as a euphemism. He had spun the language used by liberal antiracists to celebrate human cultural diversity to build a new and ostensibly more acceptable language around racism.
On Unnecessity of Divisoin
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It would have been perfectly possible to study human variation without grouping people. As Jobling explains, the divisions between us are so blurry that humans can theoretically be grouped any way you like. You could do a thought experiment where you just said we will take Kenyans, Swedes, and Japanese, and will just proportion everybody into those three things. If this were done, because we are all genetically connected to the average Kenyan, Swede, or Japanese person, either directly or by historic migration, then everyone on earth could theoretically be fully assigned to a group based on just these three nationalities. You could say that you were so many percent Kenyan, so many percent Swedish, and so many percent Japanese. This may seem meaningless, but actually it is no more meaningless than dividing the world into black, brown, yellow, red, and white. The definitions of those populations are cultural, and the choice of population is driven by expediency. Other geneticists have also warned against dividing up the world. It imposes a certain order onto our species and ignores the actual fuzziness. If the Human Genome Diversity Project had proposed sampling people more systematically, in a grid pattern across the globe perhaps, the true overlapping nature of human variation would be easier to see. Scientists would have been able to map gradual, continuous variation across regions, rather than tight knots centered on very small communities. It s hard not to imagine that this approach which was mooted at the time but then discarded might also have been a more effective way of fighting racism. But it wasn t the one the researchers chose.
On Racism in the Post-Genomic Era
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The Canadian philosopher Lisa Gannett has similarly warned about the ethical limits of thinking about race in this new way. To some it may not seem racist to think about statistically average populations rather than distinct types of people. Certainly early population geneticists such as Dobzhansky believed that racism was rooted in the assumption that within one ethnic group people are all the same, whereas those like him believed that, within these groups, people are actually very different. But in the racist mind, as Gannett explains, it doesn t necessarily matter how differences are distributed, so long as they are there in some form or another. This conceptual loophole in population genetics the fact that we re all different as individuals but that there is also some apparent order to this diversity is what has since been seized upon by people with racist agendas. Gannett calls it statistical racism.
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In Genes, Peoples, and Languages, Cavalli-Sforza added a humorous aside when talking about the fact that researchers looking hard enough could spot average genetic distinctions between neighboring populations, even at the village level: People in Pisa and Florence might be pleased that science had validated their ancient mutual distrust by demonstrating their genetic differences, he wrote jokingly. But then, isn t this exactly what racism is? A dislike of other groups in the belief that they are biologically different? In the mind of the racist, it probably doesn t matter how big the groups happen to be, or if the differences are gradual or sharp. It presumably means equally little if it s all about gene frequencies or population averages, so long as the differences are real. If the people of Pisa and Florence could have their mutual distrust validated by population genetics, then why not the people of any other two places? For Radin, the problem is obvious. It lies in the need to group in the first place, to separate even when that separation means having to zoom in on the very tiniest bits of the genome that might differ, and even then only on average. This need to separate, to treat people as different, is how race was invented. What happens is that you ve got a large community of very well meaning, self-described antiracist scientists seeking to find a way to move beyond race into population genetics, which seems to be incredibly neutral. It s numbers, it s statistical, it s objective, she says. What they have a more difficult time reckoning with is that even something like population genetics is a science done by people, working with the assumptions and the ideas that are available at the time. They may believe themselves to be free of racism, but they can t help thinking about humans in racial terms.
Use This Population as an Example of Strong Genetic Selection
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Yet I can t help but ask myself whether Sivasubbu has a point. In 2018 scientists were amazed to discover that the nomadic Bajau people of Southeast Asia, who live almost entirely at sea, surviving by free-diving to hunt fish, had evolved an extraordinary ability to hold their breath underwater for long periods of time. The Bajau tend to have disproportionately larger spleens than nearby populations of farmers, which possibly helps them to keep up their blood oxygen levels when diving. There appears to be a measurable genetic difference between them and others, sharpened over many generations by living in an unusual environment. This raises a question we don t like to ask out loud, but one that goes to the heart of the race debate. It is where race science began, with a belief that neglects history and jumps straight to the conclusion that the human zoo is like an animal zoo, each of us defined deep down by our stripes and spots. And it leads straight from the offensive observation made by James Watson on the preponderance of Jewish intellectuals and Indian Brahmins in academia. Might it be possible, as Watson implied, for a group of people, isolated enough by time, space, or culture, to adapt to their particular environment or circumstances in different ways? That they could evolve certain characteristics or abilities, that they might differ in their innate capacities?
Turkheimer
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Eric Turkheimer, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, believes they will never find it. I ve been around for a while, he tells me. I ve been in this field thirty years, and every single one of those thirty years, the biology people of one stripe or another have been saying, I know we re not there yet but in five years, as soon as this next piece of technology is nailed, as soon as we have brain scans, as soon as the genome project is completed . . . It s always right around the corner. And the reason I don t believe it is because I don t believe that s the way genetic causation works.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
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So for Turkheimer, it beggars belief that anyone should assume that the cognitive gaps psychologists now claim to see between racial groups in the United States could be biological. The effects of slavery and centuries of racism, in all its forms, are hard to quantify, but black Americans have undoubtedly suffered in ways that have left their marks on generations. Millions of people were kidnapped and thrown in the bottom of boats and taken across the ocean, and a third of them died on the trip, and then thrown on plantations and enslaved for hundreds of years. And after that, treated with total discrimination. And now, now their IQs are a little lower? And we re saying it s in their genes? My feeling about that is, give me a break.
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A hundred years ago, people were quite convinced that Greek people had low IQs. You know, people from southern Europe? Whatever happened to that? Did somebody do a big scientific study and check those Greek genes? No, nobody ever did that. It s just that time went on, Greek people overcame the disadvantages they faced a hundred years ago, and now they re fine and nobody thinks about it anymore. And that s the way these things proceed. All we can do is wait for the world to change and what seemed like hardwired differences melt away and human flexibility just overwhelms it.
Environmental Point
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We know from the seeds-planted-in-two-pots example that you can t compare populations that live in different environments because the differences between them could easily be ascribed to nurture rather than nature. And there is no doubt that the social and economic circumstances of most black Americans remain significantly behind those of white Americans. The Institute for Women s Policy Research in Washington, DC, found that in 2017 the median weekly wage taken home by a white man working full-time was 33 percent higher than that taken home by a black man in a comparable job. It was almost 50 percent higher than that of a black woman. The wealth gap wealth refers to assets accumulated over generations is even starker. Research in 2017 showed that of lower- and middle-income households, white families have four times as much wealth as black families. According to the most recent data, two-thirds of black children live in single-parent families, compared with a quarter of children in non-Hispanic white families. Across the board, black Americans are significantly worse off, from the level of police brutality they suffer to the quality of healthcare and schooling they receive.
Plomin Admission?
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If bad intuition is the problem, it s a problem we all have. Intelligence is just as multifaceted a cognitive trait as any other, but there s a widespread assumption that it is very heavily influenced by inherited natural ability. In reality, parents IQ scores can only explain 15 percent of the variance in their own children, admits Plomin. Exceptionally smart parents are likely to have children a little less smart than themselves because of a phenomenon known as regression to the mean, which works to bring everyone in a population back closer to the average. Very bright children are likelier to emerge from parents in the middle of the intelligence range, where most people live. This was precisely the statistical fact that made eugenics impossible.
Interpreting the Flynn Effect
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In 1984 James Flynn, an intelligence researcher based at the University of Otago in New Zealand, raised a collective gasp in the scientific community when he announced that for nearly fifty years, since 1932, American IQs had been rising at a rate of about three points a decade. This finding could have been interpreted as people getting significantly smarter with each passing generation. In reality, as Flynn recognized, people had simply become much more skilled at taking IQ tests. This phenomenon is now known as the Flynn effect. Test takers were performing better not because they had evolved mental capacities beyond those of their grandparents but because their minds were being nurtured and sharpened now in ways they weren t before, by better and more education, more intellectually demanding jobs and hobbies. The period in question shows the radical malleability of IQ during a time of normal environmental change, Flynn wrote at the end of his paper. Whatever link to intelligence is measured by IQ tests, it saw a benefit from the passage of time, from cultural change.
Flynn 2012
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Mankind Quarterly editor Gerhard Meisenberg had told me that some countries are too cognitively challenged to prosper, that essentially they are poor because they are stupid. His only evidence was historical IQ test scores. Should anyone need it, the Flynn effect is some of the best proof yet that he is wrong. It shows that environment matters in IQ test results, even at a population level. In a paper published in American Psychologist in 2012, Flynn, Turkheimer and other experts suggested that, at this rate, the apparent IQ gap between developing and developed countries could close by the end of the 21st century. Flynn has shown that the IQ performance of African Americans has risen faster than that of white Americans in the same time period. Between 1972 and 2002 they gained between seven and ten IQ points on non-Hispanic whites.
Mixed Race Empirics
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But if the biological portion of intelligence is rooted in a complex mixture of many thousands of genes, as biologists now agree it is, then it stands to reason that someone of mixed ancestry will have a mix of intelligence-linked genes from most if not all of their recent forebears. They wouldn t inherit genes from those with just one skin shade and not another. And if that s the case, and there are indeed innate, genetic racial differences in intelligence, then logic dictates that they should show up in people of mixed ancestry. If, as Rushton and Jensen implied, black people are biologically less smart, then shouldn t black Americans with higher proportions of white European ancestry have slightly higher IQs? As far back as 1936, a study of exactly this kind was published by two American schoolteachers, Paul Witty and Martin Jenkins. They picked sixty-three of the highest-performing black children in the Chicago public school system, and compared their IQs with the proportion of white ancestry they were thought to have, according to information provided by their parents. The results revealed no gap at all. Having more white ancestry didn t raise a child s IQ. Indeed, the most remarkable student in the group, a girl with an IQ of 200, was reported to have no white ancestry whatsoever.
Likely a Reference to Mtras?
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A similar study was carried out much later, in 1986, this time looking at black children who had been adopted into middle-class black and white families. Children who had one white parent and one black had around the same IQs as children with two black parents. What did make a difference in performance, though, was the family they were adopted into. The black and mixed-ancestry children adopted into white families had IQs thirteen points higher than those adopted into black families.
Examine Empirics in Uk
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It is interesting how the debate over racial differences in IQ takes on a different flavor in other countries. The United States seems to be a special case. In the United Kingdom, the group of sixteen-year-olds that achieves the lowest grades in IQ tests is white working-class boys, followed by white working-class girls. Yet scientists haven t leaped up to claim that low intelligence is rooted in whiteness. There s no evidence that being white in the UK is a socially disadvantaging factor either, so by this logic it must be their socioeconomic status that s the problem. In the decade to from 2006 to 2016, some of the greatest progress in educational attainment in the UK was seen among Bangladeshi, black African, and Chinese pupils. Girls have also historically tended to outperform boys, even though there is no average intelligence gap between the sexes. According to the founder of the Sutton Trust, which researches social mobility in the UK, it s clear that culture is at play here. There are social influences where class, ethnicity, and gender intersect, and they all affect achievement.
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Culture
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Biologists Marcus Feldman at Stanford University and Sohini Ramachandran at Brown University have suggested that the missing heritability that scientists have for so long struggled to find in our DNA when it comes to intelligence and other complex traits may in fact be explained by the magic ingredient of culture. New scientific tools help us understand our genomes better, but they have only reduced the proportion of intelligence scientists now believe to be heritable. Feldman and Ramachandran ask the obvious: Why do scientists not look elsewhere for explanations?
Caste and Intelligence
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
But we can change. As societies do shift and inequalities finally flatten, then we start to see our assumptions overturned. Stepping out of a rigid, unjust system can prove just how flexible we really are, just how far outside our genes our differences really may lie. In April 2018 a study was published that looked into the performance of Indian bureaucrats hired as result of affirmative action policies. The Indian Administrative Service, one of the largest and most powerful bureaucracies in the world, is also one of the toughest places to land a job. Of the 400,000 people who apply, 7,500 are invited to take a grueling exam, of which as few as 100 or so will be offered a position. Controversially, half of these vacancies are then reserved for marginalized castes, whose slightly lower scores would usually disqualify them. A common assumption has been that, even though they help redress social inequality, these quotas must have an impact on standards. If people have to be given a leg up to get in, then they surely can t be as good? Some believe that those born into lower castes are innately incapable of doing these high-status jobs well anyway, regardless of their actual socioeconomic position. But when they investigated one particularly large sample project, American scholars Rikhil Bhavnani and Alexander Lee found no statistically significant difference in performance at all. Improvements in diversity can be obtained without efficiency losses, they concluded. Caste made no impact. Indeed, the lower-caste applicants who got through the usual way, without the quota, tended to perform somewhat better than average.
Lahn
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Lahn moved up the academic ladder at lightning speed. In 1999 he was named one of MIT Technology Review s thirty innovators under thirty. Then in 2005 he published a pair of studies in the prestigious journal Science drawing a connection between a couple of genes and changes in human brain size. He and his colleagues stated that as recently as 5,800 years ago (just a heartbeat in evolutionary time), one genetic variant that was linked to the brain among other things had emerged and swept through populations because of evolution by natural selection. Their implication was that it bestowed some kind of survival advantage on our species, making our brains bigger and smarter. At the same time, he noted that this particular variant happened to be more common among people living in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of East Asia but was curiously rare in Africa and South America. Lahn speculated that perhaps the human brain is still undergoing rapid adaptive evolution although not for everyone in the same way.
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
But there were problems with Lahn s findings. Even if his gene variants did show up with different frequencies in certain populations, it didn t necessarily mean that they provided those who had them with a cognitive advantage. They were known to be linked to organs other than the brain, so if the variants were selected for, maybe this was nothing to do with intelligence. The hypothesis needed more evidence. So, soon after the papers were published, the controversial Canadian psychologist John Philippe Rushton ran IQ tests on hundreds of people to see if possessing the gene variants really did make a difference. Try as he might (and we can reasonably assume that as the head of the Pioneer Fund at the time, he tried his hardest), he couldn t find any evidence they did. They neither increased head circumference nor general mental ability. Before long, critics piled on across the board, undermining every one of Lahn s scientific and historical assertions. For a start, the gene variant he described as emerging 5,800 years ago could actually have appeared within a time range as wide as 500 to 14,100 years ago, so it may not have coincided with any major historical events. The respected University of Pennsylvania geneticist Sarah Tishkoff, who had been a coauthor on his papers, distanced herself from the suggestion that the gene variants in question might be linked to advances in human culture, as Lahn had suggested. There were doubts, too, that Lahn s gene variants had seen any recent selection pressure at all. Tishkoff tells me that scientists today universally recognize intelligence as a highly complex trait, not only influenced by many genes but also likely to have evolved during the far longer portion of human history when we were all hunter-gatherers, until around ten thousand years ago. There have been common selection pressures for intelligence, she explains. People don t survive if they re not smart and able to communicate. There s no reason to think that there would be differential selection in different populations. That doesn t mean somebody won t find something someday. Maybe it s possible, but I don t think there s any evidence right now that supports those claims.
Racialism Causes Racism
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
In 2015 sociologists Carson Byrd at the University of Louisville and Victor Ray at the University of Tennessee investigated the belief of white Americans in genetic determinism. Studying responses to the General Social Survey, which is carried out every two years to provide a snapshot of public attitudes, Byrd tells me they found that whites see racial difference in more biologically deterministic terms for blacks. Yet they tend to view their own behavior as more socially determined. For instance, if a black person happens to be less smart than average, the whites attribute this to the black person s having been born this way, whereas a white person s smartness or lack thereof is seen more as a product of outside factors such as schooling and hard work. So they give people a bit more leeway if they re white, he explains.
Asian Iq and Work -- Culture Again
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
The belief that races have natural genetic propensities runs deep. One modern stereotype is that of superior Asian cognitive ability. Race researchers, including Richard Lynn and John Philippe Rushton, have looked at academic test results in the United States and speculated that the smartest people in the world must be the Chinese, the Japanese, and other East Asians. When the intelligence researcher James Flynn investigated this claim, publishing his findings in 1991, he found that in fact East Asians had the same average IQ as white Americans. Remarkably, though, Asian Americans still tended to score significantly higher than average on the SAT college admission tests. They were also more likely than average to end up in professional, managerial, and technical jobs. The edge they had was therefore a cultural one: their upbringing had endowed them with more supportive parents or maybe a stronger work ethic. They just tended to work harder than others.
Race and Medicine: Diabetes and Environment
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
He offers the example of diabetes, a disease believed to run in families. In the United Kingdom, it has been estimated that those of South Asian ancestry can be up to six times as likely as other ethnic groups to receive a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. But even if some people may be genetically slightly more predisposed to a disease, this isn t the same as actually receiving a diagnosis. Type 2 diabetes is well known to be heavily associated with lifestyle, such as diet and exercise, as well as age. Waist size is one of the most reliable correlations of all, which is why diabetes is becoming common among the middle classes of South Asia. Diets have always been rich in sugar and fat, but now people there are wealthier and more sedentary, leading to obesity. If diabetes were purely genetic, the world wouldn t be seeing a diabetes epidemic at this moment and not before. Just to say that it runs in your family is ludicrous, says Yuille. And it is fatalistic because it inhibits you from participating in activities that reduce risk. This is what it means to be human, says Gregory Radick, to know what it is to be a person and a body, to understand yourself along with everything else around you as this product of interactions between what you ve inherited and your surroundings. Then you can begin to see that you haven t been dealt a hand that you just have to accept, but it s within our gift to change these things and to make improvements. When you change the context, you can potentially change the effects. Another example of a condition that scientists believed is heritable is schizophrenia, a mental disorder for which people of black Caribbean ancestry living in the United Kingdom receive disproportionately more diagnoses than white people, to the point where it has even been described as a black disease. In recent years there have been feverish hunts for the genes thought to be responsible. In 2014 an enormous study involving more than 37,000 cases finally did find a number of genetic regions that may be associated with schizophrenia. But it turned out that the presence of even the most likely of these variants elevated the risk of suffering from schizophrenia by just a quarter of 1 percent over the risk in the population as a whole. One particular gene variant turned up in 27 percent of patients but also in around 22 percent of healthy subjects. If schizophrenia is inherited, then its inheritance clearly can t be a straightforward equation. Indeed, environmental risk factors, including living in an urban environment and being an immigrant, have already been shown to be at least as important to being diagnosed as any genetic links found so far. One study published in Schizophrenia Bulletin in 2012 found that patients with psychosis were almost three times as likely to have been exposed to adversity as children. That s not to say the disorder doesn t have a genetic component, but it does demonstrate that it can t be quantified by looking at genes in isolation. If there are racial differences in diagnoses, it may be that life experiences, perhaps even the negative experiences resulting from racial discrimination, tip some people over the edge while rescuing others. This is without even considering that schizophrenia diagnosis itself is known to be notoriously subjective. And if race is a factor, it s interesting to contrast the characterization of schizophrenia as a black disease with an observation by the Nazi scientist Otmar von Verschuer who worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics in Germany. A year before the outbreak of World War II he wrote, Schizophrenia is strikingly more frequent among Jews. According to statistics from Polish insane asylums, among insane Jews schizophrenia is twice as common as among insane Poles. Then he made a leap, twisting a medical observation into a racial generalization: Since it is a matter of a hereditary disease . . . the more frequent occurrence of the disease in Jews must be viewed as a racial characteristic. At that moment in time in that particular place, then, it wasn t a black disease; it was a Jewish one.
Race and Medicine: Hypertension
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
American doctors have for decades wondered whether the gaps they see could be due to some intrinsic difference between races. They used to ask whether hypertension might even be a uniquely different illness in black people, connected somehow to skin pigmentation or testosterone levels, or to the heat and humidity of Africa. But as time passed and population studies were done, it turned out that people living in Africa, especially rural Africans, have the lowest levels of hypertension in the world. The people are skinny, they don t eat much salt, they re very active. There is no way that blood pressures cannot be low. It s just not possible. They don t have diabetes and they don t have hypertension, says Cooper, who has carried out blood pressure studies on tens of thousands of people across Africa, Europe, and the Americas. People in Nigeria and Ghana in West Africa, from where most black Americans can trace their ancestry, are known to have far lower blood pressures than in other countries. In fact, Cooper adds, topping the hypertension charts are Finland, Germany, and Russia. They have terrific hypertension. White North Americans and Canadians, meanwhile, tend to have lower levels than Europeans, including those in England, Spain, and Italy. Hypertension, then, isn t a global problem for those with black skin; it s a local one. We know that black Americans certainly do have higher rates of hypertension on average than white Americans, and the same appears to be the case in Britain with black and white Britons.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
For US physicians, the question has been, Why do black Americans have higher rates of hypertension? In the 1980s, attempting to neatly square the circle of low hypertension in black Africans with high hypertension in black Americans, a doctor named Clarence Grim came up with what became known as the slavery hypertension hypothesis the theory, later championed by the Harvard economist Roland Fryer, that black Americans were naturally predisposed to retain more salt because of a rapid process of natural selection on the slave ships that brought their ancestors to the New World. It was an evocative story, giving the tragic brutality of slavery an extra poignancy. Sensitivity to salt, which had helped some through the brutal journey across the Atlantic, landed their unfortunate descendants in the twentieth century with the fatal scourge of hypertension. Western diets had damned them, and there was nothing they could do. The media loved it.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
The historian Philip Curtin, an expert on the African slave trade, argued that dehydration and salt depletion were not significant causes of death on slave ships. Neither, he noted, had there ever been a shortage of salt in West Africa to make people there particularly more salt retaining. If anything, Curtin concluded, the historical evidence ran counter to the hypothesis rather than supporting it. Richard Cooper adds that salt sensitivity, if it is seen to be higher in black Americans, is likely to be a product of being primed over a lifetime for all the factors that give them hypertension in the first place, particularly poor diet. This is why other demographic groups who have higher hypertension, including men and the elderly, are also more sensitive to salt.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
In 2009 researchers thought they had finally discovered the evidence they were looking for. A team led by scientists at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, took DNA samples from around a thousand people and discovered five genetic variants linked to blood pressure in black Americans. The effects were admittedly modest, but they seemed promising. [....] In 2012 another team of researchers, Clarence Grim among them, tried to replicate the 2009 study, this time with more than twice as many people. They failed. They just couldn t see the same correlations. As scientists struggled to find the genetic evidence they thought must be out there, one team led by a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health decided to look at factors other than race that might correlate with high blood pressure. They discovered that level of education, which often correlates with income level and social class, was a far better predictor of someone s having hypertension than the person s percentage of African ancestry. Each year of education was associated with an additional .5 millimeter decrease of mercury in blood pressure readings. A year later, a study in Cuba showed that being black or white there made no difference to average blood pressure or hypertension. Others pointed out that living in an urban environment was strongly associated with blood pressure rises, as was being an immigrant or adopting a westernized lifestyle.
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
For all the studies that point to innate racial differences in health, the genetic evidence so far rarely tallies. Hypertension was just one case in point. Even enormous experiments looking at the genomes of thousands of people have turned up little. Although hundreds of gene variants linked to blood pressure have been found, collectively they explain just a percent or so of the variation we see, says Jay Kaufman. We ve had a decade of genome-wide association studies now, we ve spent billions and billions of dollars, and we still are at the position that it looks like 97 percent of the mortality disparity between blacks and whites in the United States has nothing to do with genes.
Analogy to Sickle-Cell Anemia
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Jay Kaufman and Richard Cooper worked together to dissect the statistics around sickle cell and found that, indeed, sickle cell trait prevalence in self-identified white Americans is only 250 per 100,000 members of the population, whereas in people who selfidentify as black it is between 6,500 and 7,000. On this basis, it seems sensible to screen only black infants. On the other hand, there are many more white Americans than black Americans. The odds of a black newborn having the sickle trait may be 6.7 percent, but the odds of any newborn having it are in the same order of magnitude, around 1.5 percent. This is why US states today screen newborns universally, regardless of ethnicity or race.
Using Race in Hopes of Biologically Substantiating It
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Race was the entire premise upon which they were doing their research, but they were unable to tell her what it was. Their work instead seemed to rest upon a hope that if they just persisted, they would eventually come to find meaning in these categories. What they couldn t yet define would then be defined. Somehow it would become real.
Bidil Backstory
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
Cohn s original tests on BiDil had shown that the small number of black American patients who were included in the trial (just forty-nine people) seemed to respond better to the pill than other groups did. By 2004 the results of a new trial, this time carried out on around a thousand patients, were published in the New England Journal of Medicine; they confirmed that BiDil, when taken in addition to existing medication, reduced mortality rates by 43 percent. Given that the drug had already been shown to be effective in 1987, this outcome couldn t have come as a complete surprise. But what was certainly different this time was that every single one of the patients tested was black. Cohn tells me that this was a practical decision. We did not have adequate support to do a trial in the full population, he admits. The cost of full-scale clinical trials can easily run into many millions of dollars. So we determined that maybe the best way to go would be to study the most responsive population, which was a self-designated black population. This didn t mean that BiDil didn t work in white patients, only that they didn t have the funds needed to do larger trials that included everyone.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
For BiDil, this kind of number-crunching isn t possible because the 2004 clinical trials included only self-identified black Americans and no white Americans. Statistical comparison just couldn t be done. What we have instead is plenty of studies done over the decades on racial differences in response to common hypertension treatments. On the basis of these, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the United Kingdom recommends treating black people with calcium-channel blockers as the drug of first choice, rather than ACE-inhibitors or other alternatives. Kaufman and Cooper looked through all the published papers that studied responses to blood pressure medication. Their aim was to figure out just how many individuals actually benefit from this racial distinction. They discovered that the perceived racial differences in drug response are in fact relatively small compared with differences within racial groups exactly to be expected, given everything scientists know about the genetics of human variation. So although there might be statistically significant differences at a population level, this isn t always useful when it comes to designing a treatment for any one individual patient. For example, they found that for ACE-inhibitors, which are given to white patients under the age of fifty-five in the United Kingdom but not to black patients, data suggest that for a hundred white people given the drug, forty-eight of them would fail to respond as hoped. Meanwhile if a hundred black people were given this drug they are usually denied, forty-one of them would benefit from it. In this case, they conclude, assigning treatment by race is about as useful as flipping a coin.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
I ask Jay Cohn, the eminent cardiologist who invented BiDil, whether his drug, the world s first black pill, works well in patients who aren t black. Oh, of course it does! I use it all the time in white patients, he replies. Everyone responds. Cohn has known this all along, of course, and he has always been honest about it. His intentions were never to be racist, he tells me with a laugh. And I believe him. His goal was simply to get the drug approved any way he could. Labeling it as a black pill was only ever driven by a commercial imperative. And in the end, this is business.
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO
Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
In January 2017 the independent news organization ProPublica revealed that Tom Price, a Republican congressman nominated by Donald Trump to become head of the Department of Health and Human Services, had persistently lobbied on behalf of Arbor Pharmaceuticals, which owns the marketing rights to BiDil, to remove a certain study from a government website. This study, carried out in 2009 by heart researchers at the University of Colorado on more than 76,000 people, showed that across all the racial and ethnic groups they studied, the combination of drugs that made up BiDil was not associated with significant reductions in mortality or hospitalization. The very first study on BiDil had looked at only 49 black Americans, and the second at just over a thousand. This study was far larger and therefore likely to be more significant. The United States has a federal agency, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, to help patients and doctors make informed choices about medical treatments. Yet according to the news report, one of Tom Price s aides had emailed the agency at least half a dozen times to have the University of Colorado study removed. It turned out that Arbor Pharmaceuticals had previously donated to Price s campaign fund. The month after the ProPublica news report came out, Price was confirmed as secretary of health and human services, although he resigned before the year was out, having been criticized for his use of expensive charter flights.
Nih Study Guidelines and Racial Category Misuse
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Saini 2019: TODOTODOTODO: https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1280055217 https://u1lib.org/book/5006291/101c4c https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/957704007718162472/saini2019.pdf
The way data is collected and organized is also a problem. Since 1993 the National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of medical research in the world, has had a general policy of requiring the clinical trials it supports to include women and minorities and also to collect data by race, across at least six categories. The purpose of this was never to look for differences between groups, but to ensure that medical studies include a broader spread of the population. As a demographic exercise, then, it made no difference that all black people, whether born in Africa or the United States, are today lumped by the National Institutes of Health into one general category, despite the prevalence of hypertension in their birth countries being completely different. It also shouldn t matter that the white category includes those from the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Northern Europe. Or that immigrants from Russia, which has generally very high levels of hypertension, are in the same category as white Americans, who tend to have far lower hypertension. These were never considered to be genetically similar groups, just social and demographic ones. Collecting racial data like this was meant to be an exercise of ticking off boxes. All this is a record-keeping function that comports with other federal categories and guidelines, which are social categories, explains Dorothy Roberts, a law and sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania. They are the same categories as are used in the census to keep track of who is recruited into scientific studies. It s not a requirement for researchers to design their studies in any particular way. But that s not the way the data always ends up being used.
The Bullwhip Effect Motivates Significant Vertical Integration in Capitalist Firms
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: scope of the bullwhip effect from consumer to producer
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: scope of the bullwhip effect from consumer to producer: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Analysis performed in the 1990s assessed the scale of the problem to be considerable: a fluctuation at the customer end of just 5 percent (up or down) will be interpreted by other supply chain participants as a shift in demand of up to 40 percent.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the bullwhip effect can be eliminated by vertically integrating the supply chain and its information
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the bullwhip effect can be eliminated by vertically integrating the supply chain and its information: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
But there s a catch a big one for those who defend the market as the optimal mechanism for allocation of resources: the bullwhip effect is, in principle, eliminated if all orders match demand perfectly for any period. And the greater the transparency of information throughout the supply chain, the closer this result comes to being achieved. Thus, planning, and above all trust, openness and cooperation along the supply chain rather than competition are fundamental to continuous replacement. This is not the kumbaya analysis of two socialist writers; even the most hard-hearted commerce researchers and company directors argue that a prerequisite of successful supply chain management is that all participants in the chain recognize that they all will gain more by cooperating as a trusting, information-sharing whole than they will as competitors. The seller, for example, is in effect telling the buyer how much he will buy. The retailer has to trust the supplier with restocking decisions. Manufacturers are responsible for managing inventories in Walmart s warehouses. Walmart and its suppliers have to agree when promotions will happen and by how much, so that increased sales are recognized as an effect of a sale or marketing effort, and not necessarily as a big boost in demand. And all supply chain participants have to implement data-sharing technologies that allow for realtime flow of sales data, distribution center withdrawals and other logistical information so that everyone in the chain can rapidly make adjustments.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: a massive example: the Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) approach of Walmart
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: a massive example: the Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) approach of Walmart: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Nevertheless, Walmart may just be the most dedicated follower of this firmification of supply chains. In the 1980s, the company began dealing directly with manufacturers to reduce the number of links within, and to more efficiently oversee, the supply chain. In 1995, Walmart further ramped up its cooperative supply chain approach under the moniker Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), in which all nodes in the chain collaboratively synchronize their forecasts and activities. As technology has advanced, the company has used CPFR to further enhance supply chain cooperation, from being the first to implement company-wide use of universal product bar codes to its more troubled relationship with radio-frequency ID tagging. Its gargantuan, satellite-connected Retail Link database connects demand forecasts with suppliers and distributes real-time sales data from cash registers all along the supply chain. Analysts describe how stockage and manufacture is pulled, almost moment-to-moment, by the consumer, rather than pushed by the company onto shelves. All of this hints at how economic planning on a massive scale is being realized in practice with the assistance of technological advance, even as the wrangling of its infinities of data according to Mises and his co-thinkers in the calculation debate are supposed to be impossible to overcome.
Planning Constitutes the Majority of Activity in Both Capitalist and Socialist Economies
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Toyota's kanban system was one of the earliest systems, but few large firms have not incorporated cooperative planning into their supply chain
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Toyota's kanban system was one of the earliest systems, but few large firms have not incorporated cooperative planning into their supply chain: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Toyota [was] one of the first firms to implement intra- and inter-firm information visibility through its Walmartlike Kanban system, although the origin of this strategy dates as far back as the 1940s. While Walmart was pivotal in development of supply chain management, there are few large companies that have not copied its practices via some form of cross supply chain visibility and planning, extending the planning that happens within a firm very widely throughout the capitalist marketplace.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: quote from Herbert Simon on how an external observer would note that most economic activity takes place within "green areas" (planned spaces inside firms), internally structured by "blue lines" (vertical authority over subordinates), and relatively little activity takes place via "red lines" (market competit/cooperation between firms)
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: quote from Herbert Simon on how an external observer would note that most economic activity takes place within "green areas" (planned spaces inside firms), internally structured by "blue lines" (vertical authority over subordinates), and relatively little activity takes place via "red lines" (market competit/cooperation between firms): http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Some years before the relatively obscure Marxist critic Frederic Jameson was fashioning utopian visions based on Walmart s internal planning, a much more mainstream figure, economist Herbert Simon, had a not dissimilar realization. A polymath, winner of both the Swedish National Bank s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (widely but inaccurately described as the Nobel Prize in Economics) and the Turing Award (widely and comparatively more accurately described as the Nobel Prize for Computing), Simon in 1991 offered up the following thought experiment one that might have seemed out of place to regular readers of the prestigious but orthodox Journal of Economic Perspectives: Suppose that [a mythical visitor from Mars] approaches the Earth from space, equipped with a telescope that reveals social structures. The firms reveal themselves, say, as solid green areas with faint interior contours marking out divisions and departments. Market transactions show as red lines connecting firms, forming a network in the spaces between them. Within firms (and perhaps even between them) the approaching visitor also sees pale blue lines, the lines of authority connecting bosses with various levels of workers. As our visitor looked more carefully at the scene beneath, it might see one of the green masses divide, as a firm divested itself of one of its divisions. Or it might see one green object gobble up another. At this distance, the departing golden parachutes would probably not be visible. No matter whether our visitor approached the United States or the Soviet Union, urban China or the European Community, the greater pan of the space below it would be within the green areas, for almost all of the inhabitants would be employees, hence inside the firm boundaries. Organizations would be the dominant feature of the landscape. A message sent back home, describing the scene, would speak of large green areas interconnected by red lines. It would not likely speak of a network of red lines connecting green spots. Simon intended his tale of visiting Martians as a light chiding of his fellow economists for ignoring how pervasive authoritarian power relationships and planning actually are under capitalism. Planning was in fact almost everywhere you looked, even though the discipline of economics had largely spun tales even more fantastical than UFOs visiting Earth: the fairy story of a harmonious and self-regulating market economy.
The Coasian Solution: Islands of Conscious Power Are Motivated by Transaction Costs
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: why isn't everything a market
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: why isn't everything a market: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Ronald Coase went to the United States to do something that, up to this point, few scholars in the still-young discipline of economics had cared to do: investigate how the firm, the black box at the heart of the economy, actually operated. Coase s question was a simple one, but one to which the economics he had been taught didn t yet have an answer: Why are there these islands of conscious power ? If production is regulated by price movements [and] production could be carried on without any organization at all, well might we ask, why is there any organization? In other words, if the market is the magic bullet to all human interaction, then even the simplest work tasks from stock this shelf to format this spreadsheet could theoretically be governed by prices on markets rather than by managers giving orders. Somewhat naively, Coase asked, why isn t everything bought and sold on its own little market?
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the answer: markets are costly to run and incur transaction costs
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the answer: markets are costly to run and incur transaction costs: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Coase argued that companies do all of this apparent in-house imitation of the Soviet Union simply because the cost is too high of leaving up to markets every last coordinating decision. This was quite a clever explanation for the dissonance between copious corporate planning within and throughout a free market system. Economists are fond of the saying that there is no free lunch. Coase applied this to markets themselves. Markets introduce a whole web of what he called transaction costs. Writing a contract, setting up a market or finding the best price all take up resources and time. So long as the cost of doing all this was cheaper in house than on the market (and it was), it was only rational to keep it in house. So the free market isn t really free either! Coase argued that it only makes sense that some decisions would be left to planning a decision is made, and it is done. Planning is more efficient though for Coase, only up to a certain point.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: firms are "islands of conscious power" (from internal firm planning) in an "ocean of unconscious cooperation" (from market competition)
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: firms are "islands of conscious power" (from internal firm planning) in an "ocean of unconscious cooperation" (from market competition): http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
The resulting text, The Nature of the Firm , features a quote from economist Dennis Robertson a close collaborator of famed British macroeconomist John Maynard Keynes, and the originator of the concept of the liquidity trap in which Robertson talks of the curiosity of the very existence of companies, unflatteringly describing them as islands of conscious power in this ocean of unconscious cooperation, like lumps of butter coagulating in a pail of buttermilk. But where Robertson had merely remarked upon the mystery, Coase explained it: Those who object to economic planning on the grounds that the problem is solved by price movements can be answered by pointing out that there is planning within our economic system [that] is akin to what is normally called economic planning.
Markets as Pre-Computer Equilibria Calculators
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Lange considered markets to be a "computing device of the pre-elecronic age"
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Lange considered markets to be a "computing device of the pre-elecronic age": http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
And it would only be a matter of time before computers came along that were powerful enough to make the process faster still. Lange spent his final years fascinated by computer science and cybernetics. In one of his last papers, he wrote: In one of his last papers, he wrote: The market process with its cumbersome tatonnements appears oldfashioned. Indeed, it may be considered as a computing device of the preelectronic age.
Oscar Lange's Neoclassical Vision of Market Socialism for Final Products and Planning for Primary and Intermediate Products
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Lange solved Mises' calculation problem by incorporating capitalist calculation into
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Lange solved Mises' calculation problem by incorporating capitalist calculation into : http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Using the equations of L on Walras, one of the founders of the neoclassical school, Lange wrote a pamphlet in 1937 that imagined a planned economy, which imitated the market without these downsides. Lange s fictional socialist planners would manipulate shadow prices on paper, rather than waiting for real prices to filter down from cash registers to production decisions. Like a UV light at a crime scene, socialist planning would make explicit all the math that only happened in the background in models of capitalism. Lange answered Mises s challenge that prices and markets were necessary to any economic rationality by incorporating them into a model of market socialism.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: market equilibrium is "tatonnement": the slow groping toward an alignment between prices, supply, and demand
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: market equilibrium is "tatonnement": the slow groping toward an alignment between prices, supply, and demand: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
The key was devising how planners would figure out which shadow prices are the right ones those that ensure the socialist economy is making enough, but not too much, of everything. For this, Lange repurposed another idea from Walras: tatonnement. In French, Walras s native tongue, the word means groping toward. Walras imagined that markets groped toward the right prices until they found the holy grail of economics: general equilibrium, where all markets are in balance and the amount supplied of every single good or service is exactly equal to the amount demanded. Add some more math, and mainstream economists will tell you that they ve proven that everyone is also as happy as can be, living in the best of all possible worlds.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Lange asks why we must wait for markets to grope toward equilibrium, when we can use consumer behavior to move even faster toward equilibrium
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Lange asks why we must wait for markets to grope toward equilibrium, when we can use consumer behavior to move even faster toward equilibrium: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Lange, however, figured planners could actually perform this tatonnement better than markets. Unlike in Otto Neurath s natural economy (discussed in chapter 2), people under Lange s market socialism would still go to (government-run) stores to buy consumer goods, signaling to planners what they wanted produced. Producers all also publicly owned would aim to produce what the planners translated from consumer demands as efficiently as possible, without needing to leave room for profit after covering costs. As the economy produced things and consumers bought them, central planners would run equations, figure out what there was too much of and what there was too little of, and adjust the shadow prices until everything was in sync. Even without all the correct information available at once, Lange s expected his planners to grope toward equilibrium like markets did under capitalism, only better and faster.
Summary of Major Failures of Neoclassical Era of Economics
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: three major failures of neoclassical theory: markets are costly (Coase), humans are imperfect (Stiglitz), equilibrium rarely occur and dynamism is key (Hayek)
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: three major failures of neoclassical theory: markets are costly (Coase), humans are imperfect (Stiglitz), equilibrium rarely occur and dynamism is key (Hayek): http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Over time, as outlined in this chapter, many poked holes in these assumptions: Markets are costly, said Coase. Human beings are not infinitely powered, all-knowing calculators, argued Stiglitz. Even Hayek was right: capitalism is dynamic, not static, and rarely in the sort of equilibrium imagined by Lange and conventional economics.
On the Misuse of the "Invisible Hand" and Collusion
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the invisible hand features just once in Adam Smith, who also extensively discusses market power (such as collusion)
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the invisible hand features just once in Adam Smith, who also extensively discusses market power (such as collusion): http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century Scot now considered the father of economics, is famous for introducing the invisible hand of the market. By this he meant no mystical force, but the idea that while individuals are making decisions whether to sell or to buy in the pursuit of self-interest, they are led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of [their] intention the welfare of society realized through a market system. Smith s hand often appears in economics textbooks as proof that markets produce, without any kind of plan, the best possible outcomes. However, Smith himself understood that real economies involve all manner of nonmarket interactions even the phrase invisible hand makes but a single appearance in his Wealth of Nations. Smith, for example, assumed that factory owners would scheme together that is, plan to keep wages low. Later economists would concentrate only on the first half of his story: that the market system produces order out of chaos, all on its own.
On Misuse of "Tragedy of the Commons" and Elinor Ostrom
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: tragedy of the commons is a real phenomenon, but it did not occur in England -- where the commons was used fairly effectively as pasture land for hundreds of years, and was forcibly enclosed by aristocrats and capitalists
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: tragedy of the commons is a real phenomenon, but it did not occur in England -- where the commons was used fairly effectively as pasture land for hundreds of years, and was forcibly enclosed by aristocrats and capitalists: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
In response to any mention of durable human cooperation that is not mediated by markets, in particular by the undisguised incentives provided by the labor market at their most basic, work or starve defenders of the market system often bring up the notion of the tragedy of the commons. The phrase, coined by ecologist Garrett Hardin in a 1968 article in the journal Science, refers to a shared resource inevitably depleted through overuse by individuals acting in their self-interest. The prototypical commons employed to illustrate this tragedy is a plot of open, shared pastureland in a village. If farmers only look out for the cows that are theirs, rather than the entire pasture, each will allow their cows to overgraze, and the land shared in common will quickly turn to dust. Over the course of her long career, Elinor Ostrom, the only woman to win the not really a Nobel prize in economics in its fifty-year existence, did much to debunk this crude story. She compiled evidence of groups stewarding common resources and found that in many cases, the commons not only survived but thrived. Rather than being overrun by unthinking selfinterest, shared resources were in reality often governed by complex sets of social rules established over time. Ostrom studied actual shared pasture land in Swiss alpine villages and found it had been preserved for common use for over 500 years. Based on this and other case studies, Ostrom went on to identify conditions that helped protect common resources among them, participation in decision making by users of the resources, the capacity for monitoring usage, meaningful social sanctions and conflict-resolution mechanisms.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Hayek argued that markets do not just achieve equilibrium, they also produce a unique form of knowledge by decentralizing decisionmaking
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Hayek argued that markets do not just achieve equilibrium, they also produce a unique form of knowledge by decentralizing decisionmaking: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
[Hayek] rejected Lange s case outright. Hayek argued that markets incomplete, permanently off tilt, full of fallible humans do not just aggregate and calculate information. Markets are producers of information and knowledge. Even if Lange s market socialism allowed planners to calculate better and faster than did free markets, planning would ultimately still be impossible because planners would not have the information created by market interactions to use in their calculations. Buying and selling may not generate technical and scientific knowledge, but it still creates all that knowledge of time and place that is instrumental to making efficient production and distribution decisions. Hayek argued that the problem for planners was not in the how the equations to use but in the what the data that goes into the equations. The copious information planners need is unavailable before markets work their magic. Decentralization creates coordination: only the market can bring together the information that is normally isolated in the heads of different individuals.
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: technological and informational limits of Hayekian critiques of information and decentralization
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: technological and informational limits of Hayekian critiques of information and decentralization: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Hayek, however, was writing before the advent of big data, which is testing the limits of just how much granular information can be collected. It seems that he also wrote in blissful ignorance of Coase, who had shown just how flimsy the veneer of decentralized decision making really is, even under capitalist markets.
Irony of Hayekian Decentralization
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Hayek's support for decentralization, which could be radically democratic, is really just freedom for money and information
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: Hayek's support for decentralization, which could be radically democratic, is really just freedom for money and information: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
If Hayek sounds like a radical democrat, the affinity is purely superficial. What he is after is not so much freedom for people, but rather freedom for information and money those two central lubricants of market activity. Human beings, after all, are not capable of democratically coordinating complex systems, so they must therefore submit themselves to the dictates of the market, onboarding its anonymous decisions no matter how profound the social costs it creates. The argument against planning clearly hinges on Hayek s ideological commitments.
On Prices and Innovation
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the form and incentives of innovation are different under capitalism than they would be under a central planning system
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the form and incentives of innovation are different under capitalism than they would be under a central planning system: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Hayek s second argument, that prices are also indispensable to the discovery of new information, has recently been unpacked by Greek socialist economists John Milios, Dimitrios Sotiropoulos and Spyros Lapatsioras. The trio writes: With the establishment of central planning, there will not be a discovery process on the part of managers, hence no proper capitalist behavior and therefore no efficiency in capitalist terms. In the end, every serious restriction of capital markets threatens the reproduction of the capitalist spirit The unleashing of finance not only channels savings to investment in a particular way, but it also sets up a particular form of organization in capitalist society. In short, Hayek may be right that prices aid in discovery under capitalism; however, that insight cannot be generalized to every socioeconomic system, including that which might supersede capitalism.
Milios Sotiropoulos Lapatsioras 2015: A political economy of contemporary capitalism and its crisis
Milios Sotiropoulos Lapatsioras 2015: A political economy of contemporary capitalism and its crisis: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/896601924 https://u1lib.org/book/2315290/7542d0
Imperfections and Market Failures: Economists Don't Choose Institutional Design and Democracy, but Better Competitive Market Design
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: when market failure is endemic, neoclassical economists chose to work toward better institution design
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: when market failure is endemic, neoclassical economists chose to work toward better institution design: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Beyond individual markets, Stiglitz and others were asking a bigger question: What if the entire economy was something of a used car dealership? Once enough examples of failing markets accumulate, the entire system s efficiency and justice can be called into doubt. In short, the economics of information ultimately challenges the argument that capitalism, despite its flaws, is the best of all possible worlds. However, rather than seeing information problems as a reason to explore collective, democratic decision-making alternatives that could bring people and information together, economists went to work making market theory work in spite of humanity s imperfections. Since the 70s, the economics of information has generated ever more ingenious ideas for incentivizing people or organizations to do things all, of course, within the bounds of capitalist markets.
Mechanism Design as a Form of Planning
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: mechanism design is one solution to deeply imperfect markets; another is to socialize those markets, which avoids the corporate power concerns of concentrated market power
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: mechanism design is one solution to deeply imperfect markets; another is to socialize those markets, which avoids the corporate power concerns of concentrated market power: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Mechanism design is one such idea. In this obscure corner of economics, economists drum up elegant, but often mathematically complex means to compel people or companies to reveal information that they would otherwise keep secret. A new auction format created by economists in the early 1990s to help the US government sell off cell phone frequencies to telecommunications firms is an exemplary case. The auction had rules designed to force companies to reveal how much the rights to frequencies were really worth to them lying would see them lose the rights to competitors. The design netted the government hundreds of millions of dollars more than expected and is now commonplace around the world. Mechanism design is a kind of planning, although a very indirect one. Economic decision making of any kind whether outright planning or a designed market needs to gather the bits and pieces of information spread between people. But information problems don t preclude other ways of doing things. Rather than creating a complex process that ultimately benefits a few big players, governments today could choose to run a public cell phone utility, which would constitute one more step on the way to greater socialization. As things stand, however, governments make some money on the auction, but give up control over a valuable resource. This also leaves behind a market dominated by a few big players who can charge famously high prices backed by shoddy customer service.
On Amazon Reviews and Planning
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: our recommendations and reviews are used to drive further profits, rather than maximize consumer well-being; these goals may often align, but may disalign dramatically; and our unpaid labor is the mechanism for all of it
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: our recommendations and reviews are used to drive further profits, rather than maximize consumer well-being; these goals may often align, but may disalign dramatically; and our unpaid labor is the mechanism for all of it: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
In our irrational system, the ultimate purpose of product recommendations is to drive sales and profits for Amazon. Data scientists have found that rather than high numbers of customer-submitted reviews, which have little impact, it is recommendations that boost Amazon s sales. Recommendations help sell not only less popular niche items when it s hard to dig up information, even just a recommendation can be enough to sway us and bestsellers that constantly pop up when we re browsing. Zooming out beyond Amazon s corporate interests, the recommendations system is a way of managing and integrating great swaths of social labor. Many of us freely, without expectation of any reward, spend time and energy writing reviews and giving out stars to products or even just mindlessly browsing on Amazon and other technology platforms. This is work that we and others benefit from. Even over the course of one day, we may repeatedly engage in unpaid labor to rate everything from the relatively innocuous, such as call quality on Skype, to the more serious, such as posts, comments and links on Facebook and Twitter, to the potentially very impactful on individual lives, such as the quality of Uber drivers. Under capitalism, the social labor of many is transformed into profit for the few: the filtering may be collaborative, but the interests it serves are competitive and very private.
On Bank Lending and Planning
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: banks choose where to invest profit, and by doing so control economic activity
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: banks choose where to invest profit, and by doing so control economic activity: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Economist J. W. Mason, who has developed the idea of finance as planner in a series of articles in Jacobin magazine, writes: Surplus is allocated by banks and other financial institutions, whose activities are coordinated by planners, not markets Banks are, in Schumpeter s phrase, the private equivalents of Gosplan. Their lending decisions determine what new projects will get a share of society s resources.
On Index Fund Control and Planning
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: finance markets choose where to invest profit, and by doing so control economic activity
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: finance markets choose where to invest profit, and by doing so control economic activity: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
This unseemly situation led Bloomberg business columnist Matt Levine to ask, in the title of a remarkable 2016 article, Are Index Funds Communist? Levine imagines a slow transition from today s index funds, which use simple investing strategies, through a future where investing algorithms become better and better, until in the long run, financial markets will tend toward perfect knowledge, a sort of central planning by the Best Capital Allocating Robot. For him, capitalism may end up creating its own gravediggers except they will be algorithms, not workers.
On Taxation and Reform as Planning
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: we should explicitly embrace the planning hidden behind corporate walls
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: we should explicitly embrace the planning hidden behind corporate walls: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
As for those who hold financial power themselves, what better way to disempower them than directly, through proposals to tax away large concentrations of wealth or diminish the role of shareholders and the stock market over the corporate sector ultimately empowering the workers that produce the goods and services, and the communities that use them. All of these reforms serve to make planning explicit and public, rather than hidden and private as it is today. To quote J. W. Mason once more, A society that truly subjected itself to the logic of market exchange would tear itself to pieces, but the conscious planning that confines market outcomes within tolerable bounds has to be hidden from view because if the role of planning was acknowledged, it would undermine the idea of markets as natural and spontaneous and demonstrate the possibility of conscious planning toward other ends.
On Publicly Operated Credit Indices and Payment Systems
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: we should demand public credit ratings and public payment agencies, rather than letting the cut of transactions go to private firms
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: we should demand public credit ratings and public payment agencies, rather than letting the cut of transactions go to private firms: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
What kinds of transitional demands could such forces make to hasten future socialization? There are relatively small, but meaningful, steps such as creating a public payments system to ensure that every time you tap your credit or debit card, it is not a private company getting a cut and setting the terms or a public credit rating agency to displace the likes of Moody s or Standard & Poor s, which play a key role in determining how investment is distributed among competing projects, most recently helping divert a sizeable chunk of it into junk mortgages that nearly crashed the world economy.
The Importance of Having an Alternative Before Enacting Socialism
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: we must know what we plan to do, or we will fail, as Lenin acknowledged near his death
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: we must know what we plan to do, or we will fail, as Lenin acknowledged near his death: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
We have knowledge of socialism, but as for knowledge of organization on a scale of millions, knowledge of the organization and distribution that we have not. This the old Bolshevik leaders did not teach us, Lenin wrote in 1923 as the scale of the challenge began to reveal itself. Nothing has been written about this yet in Bolshevik textbooks, and there is nothing in Menshevik textbooks either. Indeed, we might even say that the deterioration of the situation in the early Soviet Union was at least in part due to these gaps in classical Marxism upon which the architects of the new system depended.
Foundation
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the socialization of medicine aligned people's incentives more closely with those of patients
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the socialization of medicine aligned people's incentives more closely with those of patients: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
Pushed to act to contain such broader demands and the spread of socialist ideas, the UK government created, in 1911, a limited national insurance scheme. This first attempt at publicly funded healthcare, however, was far from comprehensive: even after two decades, National Insurance covered just 43 percent of the population, the majority of them working-age men. [....] Both fears were warranted. As they expanded, worker-run schemes did indeed start to challenge the absolute power of doctors over medical care. Worker societies did not so much target individual clinical decisions rather, they increasingly wanted a say in planning, in how resources were allocated. Would new money go into building clinics or hiring nurses or into savings accounts held by doctors? The most forward-thinking societies advocated for doctors to become salaried workers rather than contractors people thus invested in the expansion of medical practice, rather than that of personal fortunes. As with any other sector, medicine has its own logistic specificities. Decisions have to be made about where clinics are located, how to divide tasks between nurses and doctors, which afflictions should be prioritized, and so on. To have a say over these things goes beyond simple redistribution of resources; rather, British workers were demanding that an entire sector of the economy be democratized.
Privatization
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the less-privatized Scottish NHS generally performs equally or better than its more-privatized English-Welsh counterpart
Phillips and Rozworski 2019: the less-privatized Scottish NHS generally performs equally or better than its more-privatized English-Welsh counterpart: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110266691 https://u1lib.org/book/3705952/801cf6 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/858787271905116210/phillips2019.pdf
In the years immediately following this overhaul, over 10 percent of total NHS spending already went to for-profit providers. [....] Market reforms introduced plenty of new costs. Ostensibly about slimming down government bureaucracy, the dense jungle of contracts between providers and purchasers in fact required armies of new bureaucrats. Even by 1994, three years into the internal market, the NHS had hired 10,000 new managers. While administration costs made up just 5 percent of the total NHS budget in the 1980s, by 2005 they had nearly tripled, to 14 percent of the total. On these simple measures, planning was several times as efficient as the market. A 2014 report from the UK s Center for Health and the Public Interest put the cost of just running the internal market itself at an estimated 4.5 billion per year enough to pay for dozens of new hospitals. [....] Have all of these additional costs created new benefits? At best, it s hard to tell. Every patient comes into treatment with their own personal history, including all the social determinants of health, making comparison very difficult. On an aggregate level, recall that as England moved further along the market path, Scotland decided in the late 1990s to return to a more public NHS, where patients are not just consumers of healthcare but owners of the healthcare service itself. Since then, the Scottish NHS has improved more rapidly on important indicators, such as wait time for a hospital bed or an ambulance. On other measures like life expectancy, the gap between relatively poorer Scotland and its southern cousin remains steady, as well.
Schweickart 2016: Economic Democracy
Schweickart 2016: Economic Democracy: https://thenextsystem.org/node/204
Schweickart 2011: mere critique of capitalism is insufficient, a successor system is necessary
Schweickart 2011: mere critique of capitalism is insufficient, a successor system is necessary: https://www.google.com/books/edition/After_Capitalism/X0sBA_ya34gC https://u1lib.org/book/5558600/b5b825 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/827934025355624498/schweickart2011.pdf But there was a problem. Marx s critique of capitalism, which acknowledges its accomplishments while laying bare its exploitative underpinnings and irrational dynamic, remains just that: critique. Marx offers no model for an alternative economic order, no recipes for cookshops of the future, in his disdainful phrase. [....] [H]istorical materialism claims that capitalism, the dominant economic system of Marx s day and our own, will be superseded by a more rational order. This successor system has been traditionally called socialism, and has been viewed as itself a stage on the way to a higher communism. But as anyone who has studied Marx knows, there is a blank page at precisely this point in his theory. Marx says almost nothing as to what this socialism would look like. Virtually no attention is given to the institutional structures that are to replace those of capitalism and thus define an economic order genuinely superior to capitalism.
Schweickart 2011: like progressive christians, we should be inspired by past socialist movements but not seek to defend their every action
Schweickart 2011: like progressive christians, we should be inspired by past socialist movements but not seek to defend their every action: https://www.google.com/books/edition/After_Capitalism/X0sBA_ya34gC https://u1lib.org/book/5558600/b5b825 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/827934025355624498/schweickart2011.pdf The counterproject must keep the tradition alive without denying the shortcomings and failures sometimes horrific of individuals, parties, and governments that have called themselves socialist or communist. This is not so strange. Consider the parallel with Christianity. Progressive Christians draw strength and inspiration from the Christian tradition without denying the inquisitions, religious wars, corruption, and abuse that are also a part of Christianity s history. There are values, and lives committed to those values, in both traditions (essentially the same values as liberation theologians have demonstrated) that continue to inspire.
Schweickart 2011: socialists should not reject "liberal values" merely because they were liberal
Schweickart 2011: socialists should not reject "liberal values" merely because they were liberal: https://www.google.com/books/edition/After_Capitalism/X0sBA_ya34gC https://u1lib.org/book/5558600/b5b825 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/742557921849901077/827934025355624498/schweickart2011.pdf The counterproject, as it develops, will have to be a dialectical socialism, not a nihilistic socialism. 12 Its aim is not to negate the existing order, wipe everything out and start over, but to create a new order that preserves what is good in the present while mitigating its irrationality and evil. The counter-project will not be what Marx decried as crude communism, a communism animated by envy, which wants to level down and destroy whatever cannot be enjoyed by all. 13 It will be a project that builds on the material and cultural accomplishments of past centuries. It will embrace the political ideals of liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. It will endorse and promote such values as generosity, solidarity, and human creativity, and also self-discipline, personal responsibility, and hard work. It will not sneer at any of these ideals or values as bourgeois. They will be regarded as indispensable to the construction of a new and better world.
Lenin 1917: on democracy, democracy is socialism
Lenin 1917: on democracy, democracy is socialism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/state-and-revolution.pdf
Democracy means equality. The great significance of the proletariat's struggle for equality and of equality as a slogan will be clear if we correctly interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labor and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing further from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". By what stages, by means of what practical measures humanity will proceed to this supreme aim we do not and cannot know. But it is important to realize how infinitely mendacious is the ordinary bourgeois conception of socialism as something lifeless, rigid, fixed once and for all, whereas in reality only socialism will be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly mass forward movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the population, in all spheres of public and private life. Democracy is of enormous importance to the working class in its struggle against the capitalists for its emancipation. But democracy is by no means a boundary not to be overstepped; it is only one of the stages on the road from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to communism. Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state. This, in turn, results in the fact that, at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism--the proletariat, and enables it to crush, smash to atoms, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican-bourgeois, state machine, the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy and to substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of armed workers who proceed to form a militia involving the entire population. Here "quantity turns into quality": such a degree of democracy implies overstepping the boundaries of bourgeois society and beginning its socialist reorganization. If really all take part in the administration of the state, capitalism cannot retain its hold.
Lenin 1917: on the transition from capitalism to socialism
Lenin 1917: on the transition from capitalism to socialism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/state-and-revolution.pdf
The development of capitalism, in turn, creates the preconditions that enable really all to take part in the administration of the state. Some of these preconditions are: universal literacy, which has already been achieved in a number of the most advanced capitalist countries, then the "training and disciplining" of millions of workers by the huge, complex, socialized apparatus of the postal service, railways, big factories, large-scale commerce, banking, etc., etc. Given these economic preconditions, it is quite possible, after the overthrow of the capitalists and the bureaucrats, to proceed immediately, overnight, to replace them in the control over production and distribution, in the work of keeping account of labor and products, by the armed workers, by the whole of the armed population. (The question of control and accounting should not be confused with the question of the scientifically trained staff of engineers, agronomists, and so on. These gentlemen are working today in obedience to the wishes of the capitalists and will work even better tomorrow in obedience to the wishes of the armed workers.) Accounting and control--that is mainly what is needed for the "smooth working", for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens becomes employees and workers of a single countrywide state syndicate . All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay; the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations--which any literate person can perform--of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.
Lenin 1917: on the transition from socialism to communism
Lenin 1917: on the transition from socialism to communism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/state-and-revolution.pdf
When the majority of the people begin independently and everywhere to keep such accounts and exercise such control over the capitalists (now converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry who preserve their capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general, and popular; and there will be no getting away from it, there will be "nowhere to go". The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay. But this factory discipline, which the proletariat, after defeating the capitalists, after overthrowing the exploiters, will extend to the whole of society, is by no means our ideal, or our ultimate goal. It is only a necessary step for thoroughly cleansing society of all the infamies and abominations of capitalist exploitation, and for further progress. From the moment all members of society, or at least the vast majority, have learned to administer the state themselves, have taken this work into their own hands, have organized control over the insignificant capitalist minority, over the gentry who wish to preserve their capitalist habits and over the workers who have been thoroughly corrupted by capitalism--from this moment the need for government of any kind begins to disappear altogether. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment when it becomes unnecessary. The more democratic the state which consists of the armed workers, and which is "no longer a state in the proper sense of the word", the more rapidly every form of state begins to wither away. For when all have learned to administer and actually to independently administer social production, independently keep accounts and exercise control over the parasites, the sons of the wealthy, the swindlers and other "guardians of capitalist traditions", the escape from this popular accounting and control will inevitably become so incredibly difficult, such a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are practical men and not sentimental intellectuals, and they scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), that the necessity of observing the simple, fundamental rules of the community will very soon become a habit. Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society to its higher phase, and with it to the complete withering away of the state.
Summary of Blanc's Position
Blanc 2022
Blanc 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64UjVAoWwGs
I wanna first summarize some of the lessons that we on the panel tonight agree on: First, and maybe most importantly, the Russian Revolution showed that cpaitalism isn't eternal, it showed that working people can overthrow the current system and start building a society that establishes democracy in the economy and not just in politics. Second, it shows that the strategy to get to that goal, not a strategic alliance with liberals or capitalists. Third, to overthrow capitalism, workers need their own party, and Marxists have a central role to play in making that party effective. Finally, the class struggle is international, and the struggle of workers in every country is deeply interlinked.
Importance of Democracy
Blanc 2022: workers conquered democracy and it's good politics to defend that victory
Blanc 2022: workers conquered democracy and it's good politics to defend that victory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64UjVAoWwGs
Lenin's claim that "the democratic republic is the best possible shell for capitalism", which is often quoted by Leninists, severely underestimates the extent to which democratic parliaments were won by and for working people. What democracy we have is a conquest to be defended and expanded. This conception of Lenin that the democratic republic undercuts our ability to make the case to working people that it's always the right, not the left, that wants to undermine universal suffrage and democratically elected parliaments, which we've seen most recently through the rise of Trumpism and the January 6 insurrection.
First Major Flaw of Leninism: The Russian Revolution Cannot Be Overgeneralized
Blanc 2022: fundamental flaw of Leninism: assume that revolutionary strategies in autocratic Russia can be generalized to capitalist democracies
Blanc 2022: fundamental flaw of Leninism: assume that revolutionary strategies in autocratic Russia can be generalized to capitalist democracies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64UjVAoWwGs
Those in the Leninist tradition, including organizations like Socialist Alternative, tend to overgeneralize strategy from the Russian Revolution to the contexts of capitalist democracies. The fundamental flaw of Leninism, in my view, and this comes from the research I did and organizing experience as well, is to assume that a form of revolution and a form of party that was appropriate to autocratic Russia can more or less be transplanted to capitalist countries where civil liberties and democratic institutions are significantly more robust, even if they don't go as far as we'd like. More specifcially, I think it's wrong to claim that the Revolution illustrates the universal validity of one, a new conception of revolution as laid out in Lenin's "State and Revolution", according to which the entire existing state overthrown everywhere through a mass uprising to set up council republics, and two, it supposedly showed the necessity for a new form of revolutionary party, one committed to democratic centralism, and a revolutionary Leninist program. By new, here, I mean that this is a different form of party and revolution than the position long articulated by the left of the 2nd International, most notably by Karl Kautsky. The founding myth of Leninism, I think I've shown in the book, is that supposedly the secret to the success of the Bolsheviks in 1917 was that they broke from Kautsky's strategy, known at the time as "revolutionary social democracy", and that supposedly all other socialists should follow them in doing the same. But as I've shown in the book, this is just historically wrong, and it's politically flawed. Unlike in Germany, where Kautsky's revolutionary theories were ignored by the party leadership, in autocratic Russia, this theory was implemented -- not only by the Bolsheviks, but by all the other nationalities that led working people to conquer power in 1917 and 1918, including in Finland. This revolutionary-social-democratic strategy was premised on the correct understanding that class struggle and revolutions would develop qualitatively different in democratic and autocratic contexts. It was precisely this understanding, this distinction between politics in autocratic and democratic capitalist countries, that Leninists tended to drop from 1918 onward, or at least minimize excessively.
Blanc 2022: workers in capitalist democracies choose to use democracy to meet their demands, which is why these workers have not supported revolution
Blanc 2022: workers in capitalist democracies choose to use democracy to meet their demands, which is why these workers have not supported revolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64UjVAoWwGs
According to Leninists, the Russian Revolution shows that socialists should seek to overthrow the entire existing state, even when a democratically elected parliament exists. The problem with this claim is that it doesn't actually follow in the Russian Revolution! [Leninists] say taht the Russian Revolution proves this, but there was no democratically elected parliament to be overthrown in Russia to be overthrown. Precisely because of that, soviets (or councils) were able to fill the vacuum. It's hard to generalize from the Russian experience (at least, not Finland) to countries where such a democratic parliament does exist. All the experience during and since 1917 shows that, where a democratic parliament *does* exist, workers will try to use it to meet their demands, including for socialist transformation. That's the basic reason why Leninist revolution has never come close to taking place in a capitalist democracy. We should acknowledge that and adjust accordingly. One of the underlying flaws in Leninism, then, is its assumption that workers in all countries of the world will sooner or later behave as radically as workers did in Russia in 1917. And honestly, I really wish that it turned out to be true! That would be fantastic, if it turned out to be true, it hasn't turned out to be true. We should acknowledge that and orient to the working class as it is, not as we wish it to be. If we do that, it will help us avoid a tendency of Leninists and others to excessively blame bad leadership -- which is often a real problem! -- for holding back the revolutionary instincts of the masses. There's a lot more going on for what it's gonna take to overthrow capitalism in a different context.
Blanc 2022: capitalism survives because capitalists are powerful, not because socialists have bad leadership or the wrong socialist line
Blanc 2022: capitalism survives because capitalists are powerful, not because socialists have bad leadership or the wrong socialist line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64UjVAoWwGs
The main reason that capitalism hasn't been overthrown yet isn't that socialists have strayed from the correct socialist line. The main reason is that capitalists are very powerful, and that most workers in capitalist democracies have oriented to trying to make the state work for them, rather than trying to overthrow it. Of course, should socialists win a majority through parliamentary means, and begin to push for socialist transformation, capitalists will resist this with all means available for their disposal. There's reason to expect that the capitalist minority will peacefully submit to the minority. But it does not follow from this that universal suffrage are necessarily a form of capitalist rule, as Leninists claim. It just means that you need to leverage legitimacy structures of winning a democratic election in order to defeat the anti-democratic capitalist minority, and the undemocratic structures of the state, like the police and the army. This is precisely what happened in Finland, which had a sustained political freedom tradition and universal suffrage. There, socialists won a majority in 1916, they proceeded to try to implement their program in 1917, then when the capitalists undemocratically resisted, Finnish socialists led workers to power in 1918 to fulfill their mandate. To be clear, my argument isn't that we should try to copy Kautsky today, or that Finland is some sort of new universal model to be replicated. I think it's more narrow: Finland does show that revolutionary social democratic strategy *could* guide workers to power and that the class struggle -- and this is a big point -- tends to develop very differently where there's political freedom and where real parliaments exist, as opposed to contexts where they don't.
Second Major Flaw of Leninism: Organizational Strategy
Blanc 2022
Blanc 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64UjVAoWwGs
The second major flaw in Leninism is its claim that the Russian Revolution demonstrated the universal validity of a new party model, based on democratic centralism, strict organizational separation from socialists who didn't adhere to Lenin's new conception of state and revolution. To summarize a big history: The story [of the Russian revolution] severely exaggerates the organizational coherence and programmatic unity of the Bolshevik. In practice, this conception often tends to lead to sectarianism. Because Bolsheviks operated in an autocratic context, in which top leaders have to live abroad, and in which local committes would constantly get broken up by police, the actual practices of the Bolsheviks and other revolutionaries in Imperial Russia were extremely decentralized and fluid -- way more than any Leninist organization since 1917. The historical record just doesn't correspond *at all* to the image of a tight, united party that Leninists have tried to replicate. Moreover, the secret sauce of the Bolsheviks, and the other successful Marxists in the [Russian] Empire, like the Latvians or the Finns or others, was that they operated as relatively loose, fluid, and organic currents within a broader multi-[tendency] big tent party. Though exiled leaders tended to squabble a lot, Bolshevik on the ground, cadre on the ground, were always focused on building a leading that broader party as good faith partners with other currents. They weren't primarily just intervening in this party just to build their own organization. Because Leninists since 1918 through the present have tended to excesssively wall themselves off organizationally form other socialist currents, and because they insist that only their particular conception of state and revolution is viable, their organizations have frequently devolved into sects -- sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller. We should move away from that organizational conception, and our chances at building a majoritarian socialist movement depend on acknowledging that because there's never been a successful socialist revolution in a capitalist democracy, nobody can claim to have a precise strategic model of the way forward. We should be skeptical of claims that that model exists and just needs to be replicated.
